Elections and the Death Cult
I will venture a guess that, contrary to what many believe, Hillary Clinton’s biological status as a woman was as much an asset as a liability in the Democratic primaries. One can only speculate, but there was an understandable and fervent belief on the part of many highly mobilized (white) women voters that her achievement would be theirs. This is the contradiction of phenotype authenticity in an age where some women and some people of color can be the exception to the still standing hierarchies of social power that affect most women and most people of color.
What defeated Clinton, aside from Obama’s brilliant “ground game” (as the pundits call it) of registering and turning out new voters and his superlative internet fundraising strategy, were two things: war and race.
Hillary Clinton’s shameless warmongering during the runup to the Iraq occupation led a small but significant sector of voters to declare early and often that she would never, ever receive their votes for anything (I am included in that number).
During the South Carolina primary campaign, then, Clinton made her first major gaff in suggesting that Lyndon Johnson was more pivotal in ending Jim Crow than the Black masses who had for years participated in the struggle against American Apartheid. That was the point at which Black voters, heretofore split between Clinton and Obama, walked away from her in disgust. This shift caused the Clinton campaign to recalculate its strategic emphasis away from African America, which they had just lost, to mobilizing white, working-class America’s stubborn negrophobia.
The irony is that now, with two men running against one another for the presidency, we will see the real gender war played out.
Phenotype authenticity (wherein a woman is automatically seen as representative of women, or an African American is automatically seen as representative of African America) is a superficial and tangential cultural reflex. It is not, however, insignificant. Too many Black parents believe that Obama’s presidency will give a sense of renewed confidence to their children. This is superficial; it is tangential; and it is important. The same could have been said about girls had Clinton secured the nomination.
But now that two men are running, we will see the essence of gender as a thoroughgoing system of male dominance — and masculinity constructed as conquest, as McCain forces Obama to demonstrate his membership in the death cult called masculinity. Already pundits are saying that what Obama needs on his ticket is more “testosterone” (I shit you not, that was said on television). What that means is the willingness to inflict and accept the deaths of human beings as proof of a “protective” manhood. We call it militarism, because the fact that it is more deeply about gender is too sensitive a topic.
The challenge must be met in order to win, just as Obama had to throw his former pastor under the bus in order to win. Clinton knew he would have to; and McCain knows that Obama will have to step up and demonstrate his “manhood” when the gauntlet is thrown.
This norm begins with gender policing at home and in the schoolyard, where the “sissies” are weeded out for abuse. It is imbricated with what Carole Pateman called the “sexual contract,” a deeply-rooted cultural notion that women have to exchange obedience to one man for protection from all other men. It is mythologized in our social imaginary as the line policed by men with guns (now with a few token women) that separates the Dark World of taint, horror, and chaos from the Safe World of our outlandishly over-built environment, our phony smiles, our incessant image-management, our terror of falling behind, and our inalienable right and duty to buy shit.
Masculinity is a death cult. It is proven by the willingness to accept, condone, and ultimately inflict death; and it is demonstrated in our affectations of disregard for our own deaths.
Watch this campaign from here out; and we will see McCain lose I believe, but in the process he will force Obama to present his masculine bona fides in an orgy of ritual, and superficially coded, gender-baiting. It will go unnoticed for what it is, because the power of gender as a social hierarchy is still so ubiquitous that we ignore it like the air.
This is gender in a far deeper cycle of social reality than phenotype authenticity.
Pay attention.
Anne Ryan:
Thank you so much for the very astute and thoughtful article. I do so wish it were not true but it is.
6 June 2008, 8:44 amWinston Warfield:
Thank you for analysis and language to understand what is becoming a very confusing and chaotic image-game of race and gender coding in this election. Tools are necessary to understand what is going on, because even well-educated Americans have a hard time grappling with this stuff (being mis-educated as is the norm). This piece should be read more widely. Have you submitted it to Counterpunch, for example? Obama is already rushing full-tilt toward the embrace of Thanatos masked as “toughness”, as he swears fealty to Zionism, denounces negotiations with Arab liberation movements (so McCain won’t call him “weak”), and starts earning his Dr. Strangelove spurs by adding to the war fever being whipped up regarding Iran.
6 June 2008, 9:19 amArcher:
My wishful thinking leads me to hope that Obama is aware of this from a balanced place within himself and that he may be prepared to play a game on their end but not on his.
Past that hope – superficial, tangential and important as it is – I am afraid you are right. That he either is, or is prepared to be, no different on matters such as these.
I continue to view Obama as a step in the right direction.
Your terminology ascribing masculinity as a “death cult” – with no modifiers – disturbs my established thought process, and that causes me to delete what I just wrote on that issue in favor of more study and consideration. (the artist’s version, not the scholar’s version)
I have used the term “Hyper Masculinity” to denote aggression beyond necessity.
It’s possible I arrived at this sort of construction in order to neatly slip pass the aforementioned thought disturbances and I need to examine that, though the absolutist nature of your description also forces me to question the meaning behind the absent modifiers.
6 June 2008, 11:20 amY.K.:
Stimulating post … but why do you think that McCain will lose, especially if the contest emphasizes the virtues of violent masculinity? There are structural advantages for Republicans, not least of which include electronic voting machines and exit poll manipulations. Many are not anti-war per se, they simply don’t like to lose, and Bush is a loser. But McCain will present them a vision of victory. Also, many people deeply don’t want Obama as a war / security chief. There is still an atmosphere of paranoia, although it is weakening, but that can still turn to Republican advantage.
Plus, they’ve effectively delayed the financial crisis, so the need for economic salvation has been somewhat mitigated and postponed to 2009, again to Republican advantage. There isn’t yet a serious decline in the dollar; in fact, the Chinese are acquiring more than ever, the Saudis have kept their peg, etc. etc.
So war (imperialism) might be bigger than economy (capitalism) in the balance by the election.
I do believe the contest will be close, but will Obama exceed the 3-5% that he’ll need to win, especially in crucial states, given these Republican advantages … I’m not so sure.
YK
6 June 2008, 3:24 pmCurt:
I think we are all falling victim to Obama’s narrative that he is not just another politician, but a leader who will transcend race, politics and the clash of civilizations. However, Obama is first and foremost a politician. That means he will say whatever he has to win the election. If that includes pledging his allegiance to Israel in front of a zionist group as he did last week, then that is what he will say. If that includes bellicose language against Iran and Pakistan, then he will say that too. That doesn’t mean he will actually DO anything he says. Unfortunately, he probably won’t do what he says concerning social programs as well for many Americans who need them. He is just trying to get their vote, before he sells them down the river.
I am only voting for Obama because I believe he is more “intelligent” than McCain. Not because I believe he will rule us any differently than McCain would, but I don’t look for US presidents to have my interests at heart. My only concern is to prevent America from starting anymore wars. Whereas I think McCain will start three or four new wars, I am under the impression that an “intelligent” president will only start one or two new wars knowing that is all we can handle. That is how low my expectations have fallen for the presidency: who will start less wars?
7 June 2008, 8:45 amCharles:
Masculinity is a death cult.
^^^
7 June 2008, 9:37 amfetishizing the death of _men_ especially, other men, and self-destructive behaviors, since the other men kill back… That’s why women have a longer life expectancy than men.
Charles:
Some of the discussion here ignores the facts of what has already happened between McCain and Obama on jingoistic rhetoric. Bush impliedly called Obama an Appeaser. McCain signed on to it. Obama stuck to his line of talking with enemies Contra pessimistic, theme of this thread, Obama didn’t take the man-up bait.
There was a poll that came out saying 60% of Americans say talk with enemies, which should reinforce Obama’s resolve to step back from Bushite jingoism and chauvinism.
All that went “unnoticed” by you.
7 June 2008, 10:00 amStan:
Full article by Tim Wise.
7 June 2008, 12:56 pmArcher:
“Masculinity is a death cult.”
Those are thrill words. They may attract attention but they also delay comprehension, invite misunderstanding and obscure and impute meaning.
So now I get to ask the stupid question: “Are you asserting that is ALL there is to masculinity?” and if the answer is anything other than “Yes” then I suggest we search for a “definition” less narrow in scope.
7 June 2008, 3:42 pmArcher:
Re: “Masculinity is a Death Cult”
The etymology may be the smaller part of this assertion – nonetheless, it is a very important part. Granting that, I am suspicious of some of what I see here in regard to word selection and what those words represent, where they lead and if there is a valid relation to the larger ideas associated with them – or a disconnect that needs another look.
If they do not represent and lead as they are said to, where might they actually go, what are they actually saying and why that is occurring.
So here is the bare-bones premise.
The idea of “Masculinity is a Death Cult” is furtive and subversive hyper masculinity itself playing out under the cover of intense hyper feminism as a gender decoy.
Evidence of this is visible at first in the casual language usage, and then quite clearly seen within the context and meaning of the specific individual words and ideas chosen as gate-keepers and signifiers of an emotional construct that is supposedly a response to -and something other than – hyper masculinity.
Another clue in the linguistics is the elusive shifting of definitions away from common usage understandings and so subjecting word meanings to pre-judicial idealogical shaping, shading and, eventually, rebranding – without adequate concern for the balancing and rebalancing involved in shared communication..
The real fault-line here is the championing of a single philosophy/ideology in a binary opposition sense – literally joining in war by default – as opposed to binary/cooperative or what I think is the larger idea behind all of this – the absence of both Feminist and Masculine biases on our faculties of reason.
The absence of both Feminist and Masculine biases seems as likely to be achievable as resolving the “Masculinity as a Death Cult” trope.
7 June 2008, 11:58 pmY.K.:
I still don’t understand why Obama is favored to win. Counterpunch claimed recently that he is ahead “by almost every yardstick” … what are these? At best, Obama is running about even to McCain and he is certainly within the (manipulable) margin of error. Clinton damaged about a quarter of Democratic votes against Obama. He’s got to win these votes plus get an indisputable edge. Both Obama and McCain have tons of cash. Is there some news available locally that I’ve missed? Is this a set up for failure?
8 June 2008, 2:33 amStan:
Enemies?
8 June 2008, 2:04 pmMichael Anderson:
Thank You, Stan. Ordered “White Like Me” from Soft Skull. I am a privileged son form a small town in Oregon. Read “Black Like Me” in high school there…looking back it seems incredible that the school board in Coos Bay, Oregon would have allowed it in the 60′s. But, anyway, gotta move on, keep learning, and stay humble.
8 June 2008, 2:06 pmStan:
-from Money, Sex, and Power – Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism, by Nancy C. M. Hartsock (Northeastern University Press, 1985)
“Feminist” and “masculine” are not opposites, Apples. Oranges. Feminine and masculine are unified opposites. They are the sum of behavioral expectations imposed on biological males and females that are associated with male social power and all the ideas, roles, scripts, and so forth that evolve as constructions to stably maintain that power. They are not natural essences.
Femin-ISM is a political practice that takes women-as-women to be political subjects.
The death-cult aspect of masculinity is obviously not the whole story, but certainly needs to be provoked out from under its naturalistic cover.
I confess I am baffled by the “gender decoy” comment, since my understanding of that term is Eisenstein’s.
8 June 2008, 2:36 pmArcher:
Right. I used those words interchangably and incorrectly.
Point taken and hopefully, understood.
No excuses.
8 June 2008, 3:43 pmArcher:
Oh, I see. Now it’s just an aspect.
My previous comment is what a direct admission of error looks like.
This -
“The death-cult aspect of masculinity is obviously not the whole story,…”
– is what prevaricating looks like.
You introduce the word “aspect” in an effort to rather deceptively soften the original phrasing and avoid accountability or having to directly admit to error.
Stan, the word “Darkness” is obviously not the the whole story of a twenty-four hour period either – and that is why no one tries to use it that way.
Your argument is so weak that I can see I am not being taken seriously.
That’s OK.
The second part -
“…but certainly needs to be provoked out from under its naturalistic cover.”
– besides being an attempt to hurry past the subconscious admission of error, is also a declaration to continue misusing this idea in what I’m guessing is a variation of the lesser sin in the service of a larger truth. Or ego. Not sure which it is.
The “Gender Decoy” term I learned from you and adapted as a nice sounding phrase to my own purpose, exactly as you have done with “Masculinity is a Death Cult”.
My mistakes will be admitted to. Yours are apparently too noble or important to require accountability to me or anyone else.
It seems oddly convenient that all of this is so obvious that it requires no accuracy on the front page, but still needs to be provoked from it’s natural cover.
Is this idea and word mangling considered a good way to do that? Is it working? Are you pleased with the way it provoked this stupid argument? Are you satisfied that I have exposed myself as member of a club you clearly assert I am in? (‘Cause apparently it’s not an “essence”) Have you ever had this stupid argument before?
I expect no answers.
To take this back to my original concern – masculinity is not a death cult. You are wrong if you think this and wrong if you don’t think this but assert it anyway. (the latter is clearly the case)
My view on this stupid word use argument is that you know you are wrong, you have tacitly admitted it, but you have no intention of directly taking ownership.
I guess I’ll take that.
I sense you are tired of me or not interested in why (or even if) I seem to be attacking you as I have seen others do. Not being exceptional, I concede to some base motives (attempts at point scoring, my own ego) – though in no way and by no means was that my starting point or directly related to my main reason.
I am fascinated by what little I have seen through the windows here and at IA. I want to explore more but I needed to find out why this particular entrance appears off kilter to me.
So first I need to find out if you are deliberately obscuring my vision.
The answer to that is “yes”. Maybe “why?” is not so important.
I close by saying I have a great deal of respect for you though I am uncertain of the source of some of it.
For now, our little drama is over.
I will ponder Achilles dilemma.
Take care, Stan.
Stan:
Huh? Are you psychoanalyzing me? Where is all this coming from? The commentary speaks for itself… at least, I thought so. And I continue to insist that masculinity [the specific aspect that pertains to this election] can be characterized as a death cult. That’s why I cited Hartsock (not Achilles). This is not my own personal original idea. Feminists have been pointing this out for some time. One of those feminists is DeAnander, co-moderator/co-owner of this blog, who strongly advised me and edited as I wrote a book, Sex & War, that explains in as many ways as I could think of why one can refer this way to masculinity.
-Confused.
8 June 2008, 6:43 pmStan:
Manly Barack Obama at AIPAC
FULL
And more on Obama’s manly noises to AIPAC:
FULL
9 June 2008, 11:30 amxenia:
i don’t understand either why and how obama could win, and i’d appreciate a brief piece on this.
re masculinity and potential baiting (yes, i mean archer):
1. i have zero solidarity with condi and hillary. i don’t care if they get abused and called names for being women. that includes mocking hillary for absence or presence of adam’s apple (see previous peggy post). if hilly can rain bombs on my people, i can mock her both physical self and her dirty little soul. in the course of my life, i have lost compassion for those who trample on the weak. so, i would not defend them in the name of any feminism and i’m not the one to go for ahimsa either. there are too many other people whom i would like to protect, by any force i can summon.
2. but as to achilles, ever since reading christa wolf, i call him “achilles the animal”. he’ll plunder what he can, kill whom he will, rape males and females…and then sit and whine about home and mummy. sounds mighty familiar…sheer stuff of empires.
9 June 2008, 5:05 pmxenia:
grammar and expression mistakes in the previous post may be attributed to “colorful savage balkanite origins” or something of similarly irrational nature.
9 June 2008, 5:07 pmDeAnander:
Auden sums up the Manly Death Cult in his famous The Shield of Achilles…
@xenia I hear ya — Hillary Clinton is a member of the ruling class, effectively a princess of one of America’s royal families, and as such belong to the very select little club that decides when and where to drop bombs profitably on helpless people. which is so unspeakably hateful.
yet I still feel that, appalling as princesses like Condi and Hillary may be, dissing them on the basis of their femaleness is as empty a challenge as dissing Obama on his Blackness, or attacking the Jewish members of the neocon gang for their Jewishness. misogyny, racism, antisemitism, are not (imho) legitimised by the genuine horridness of a female, or Black, or Jewish powermonger. in fact they are pillars of the power of the elites. using them, it seems to me, can only reinforce the power of the elites.
I wish we were hearing serious dissing of these people based on their structural functions and the machinery of which they are a part. I wish they were being (somewhat more) accurately described as capitalism’s managers, as sockpuppets of the rentier elite, as members of a stagnant and increasingly delusional aristocracy… to diss Hillary as an “ugly woman,” or Perle as a “dirty Jew” for that matter [though most likely those who legitimise their antisemitism by venting it at easy targets like prominent neocons would choose a more sophisticated wording for the same visceral contempt], merely perpetuates the same hatreds that the same elite exploit to keep the peons busy with horizontal hostility instead of challenging our overlords…
I suspect that if we legitimise misogyny so long as it is directed against women we really don’t like, we implicitly legitimise it when it’s directed at us. if it’s OK to produce and circulate scurrilous porn “satires” featuring Ann Coulter then it’s OK to produce scurrilous porn scenarios mocking any woman that someone doesn’t like. no?
there is some analogy which I’m too tired to develop fully, between the banning of certain weapons of war, and refraining from using certain vectors of attack in political rhetoric. cluster bombs, DU, nuclear and biological weapons ought to be banned; even if wars (struggles, fights, unpleasant episodes, arguments) may not be entirely eliminated from our human history, there are certain weapons so nasty that they shouldn’t be used.
of course, this brings us right back around to the problem that the US, led by its elite which includes female sockpuppets like Hillary and Condi, is notorious for manufacturing and using just such abominable weapons. so why should we, down near the bottom of the political food chain, refrain from using our far less destructive memetic equivalents — misogyny, racism, antisemitism, fatphobia, homophobia, whatever other “cheap slurs” come to hand? well, maybe because we call ourselves an Opposition rather than an imitation? I dunno.
it seems to me that one of the reasons that Hillary, as putative Prez, would be structurally required to rain cluster bombs on helpless civilians, is … well, the same patriarchal death cult that loathes the adult female body and viciously mocks women for any deviation from a patently ridiculous, abiotic fantasy of infantilised femininity. the loathing for life, the biotic realm, women, the Dark Other… it’s all part of the package. the same gender mythos that required Bush to “make America a man again” by smashing Afghanistan and Iraq, requires an exaggerated femininity in women, a denial of the slenderness of differences between male and female phenotype and the breadth of natural variation among individuals. in a sense the mockery of Hillary for not looking feminine enough is the same mechanism that — as Orlov points out in his new book — requires US Presidents to prove their manhood by bombing civilians. it’s — among other things — an enforcement of gender rules. even a female President would be required to do the same — perhaps even more so, because her femaleness would cast doubts on the essential masculinity of America-the-icon, doubts which she’d have to overcome by invading somebody, somewhere, in a convincing geopolitical act of rape, a display of dominance.
ugh. not wishing to feed that beast, but to deconstruct and dismantle it, I prefer not to make fun of Hillary or Condi or any other female pol, no matter how ghastly, based on her failure to conform to the Barbie Doll Standard. their faults are far more serious than that.
10 June 2008, 12:41 amxenia:
oh, the Barbie Doll standard may be one of the greatest evils inflicted upon us by the 1950s imagination — i never wear make up, i shave very reluctantly, and i wouldn’t die my hair blond for a million dollars, but those are just some details of forming the physical self.
if anything, hillary looks to me too much like an aged Barbie. her hair especially irritates me, as it is symbolic for an upper-middle class kind of “professional” white woman, and is presumably admired by her followers in all of its dead artificiality. i call it “the helmet”, and thatcher wore something very similar.
my point was rather simple. the weak have so few opportunities to inflict anything on the powerful, and laughter is some of the more liberating aspects of political satire. hence, i see it as completely legitimate to mock bush on the basis of his stupid face, so why not hillary? or condi — i would contend that her ugliness reflects her inner self. they’re all ugly inside and outside, yet they pose as universal models.
in contrast, i would never dare to mock someone who is physically disabled — i identify too much with those people. well, except for the german politician schaeuble. he deserves mockery for being cruel and racist.
10 June 2008, 8:29 amm.c.:
De,
Ever since reading Earl Shorris’ June 2004 Harpers essay(google its online) about Leo Strauss and his disciples, I’ve been cautious to say all Neocons are Not Jewish & all Jews are Not Neocons…
10 June 2008, 12:35 pmCharles:
The issue here is expressed in the double meaning of the word “chauvinism” ,derived from the name one of Napoleon’s generals.
10 June 2008, 3:50 pmCharles:
Enemies?
^^^
What courage is there in talking to friends ? Like Jesus’s “Love thine enemies” is an extraordinary injunction because of that.
Of course, you want to say “oh , Obama called countries our enemies, when labelling them enemies is masculine death cult lingo” Obama is playing a role within certain bounds of political discourse in the US, outside of which he’d get about as many votes as Comrade Cynthia McKinney or Brother Kucinch. That’s a given. He is going to speak within US politicalspeak . But he is carving out a place about as far left as one can go without falling out of contention. That’s all quite obvious.
And so he has to pledge alleigance to Israel. That’s part of the reality of acceptable political positions for realistic contenders today in the US.
We are just in the begnning of coming out of proto-fascism with Bush, and Reaganism, so lets get real.
10 June 2008, 4:04 pmStan:
Charles, this site is not devoted to promoting Democrats. It never will be either. This site is one that seeks to discuss realities below surface and spin; and we are not going to suspend that commitment to become part of a cheerleading squad for Democratic candidates. Get real, indeed.
You just stated in so many words that Barack Obama either believes the crap he said at the AIPAC meetup or he is deliberately pandering to the US public’s malignant ignorance of the issue of Palestine-Israel. This is not “politicalspeak”; it is lying, and collaborating in a lie that has life-and-death consequences for a lot of people. That’s why the “threat of fasicsm” has to be used to excuse it; as the CPUSA has been doing for decades now to justify supporting Democrats. Don’t forget that rootless and I are both alums. We’ve seen this movie.
This site will confront ignorance. Obama can pander all he wants. I will vote for Barack Obama in November, for a lot of reasons. But I am not going to participate in the kind of manipulative mass politics that I learned at the feet of the party elders ten years ago.
Your first sentence makes no sense. Iran is not my enemy. I don’t need to turn them or anyone else into an enemy to act on faith. My main enemies are the leadership of the Republican and Democratic Parties; they are the principalities and powers at the center of our epoch of horror. They are the ones who are walling themselves off from genuine democracy, stealing from the poor to give to the rich, and authorizing bombing sorties. I hold open the possibility for each person within their ranks to redeem her/him-self. Agape leaves the door to redemption open (that’s why it attaches no conditions); but it does not command silence to the witnesses of crimes.
10 June 2008, 5:56 pmStan:
FULL
10 June 2008, 6:56 pmrootlesscosmo:
I will vote for Barack Obama in November, for a lot of reasons. But I am not going to participate in the kind of manipulative mass politics that I learned at the feet of the party elders ten years ago.
Not that we ever did a particularly good job of it. What we were good at, in the electoral arena, was lending energy to local contests, sometimes with a significant impact on the outcome; at any level above municipal or state legislative elections our influence was negligible. The “fascist danger” song and dance, with its predictable consequence (support the Democrat), was, I suspect, part of the myth that the CP was the “Left” in a national “Center-Left” alliance, whose unity had to be preserved.
10 June 2008, 9:15 pmThomas Thacker:
Kudos for such an erudite dialogue. Obama may be the first main stream candidate to get my vote. If however Mckinney’s on the NC ballot, I may vote for her as I consider her a better candidate. At this point in my intellectual development I’m not prepared to address the salient issue here of the cult of death, feminism and Hillary. Maybe after reading, Sex and War which arrived today-whoopee! Love of power trumps gender in Hillary’s case. If her support for Obama is tepid and somehow McCain wins, she’s banking on winning in 2012. Given the economic storm that has already begun that’s certainly within the realm of possibilities.
11 June 2008, 5:29 amaudrey:
xenia – I would ask you to reconsider this statement: “i would contend that her ugliness reflects her inner self.”
It’s a very destructive thing to take standards of beauty – which are so influenced by corporate interests – and start claiming that those who meet the standards do so because they are good “inside”, and those who don’t meet those physical standards are ugly because it’s a reflection of their character. It’s especially destructive when those standards are so wrapped up in racism, misogyny, and class issues. Even simple things like who can or can’t afford dental care or plastic surgery to bring themselves in line with what society considers Not Ugly makes this is a really bad path to head down.
When you say something like that, in your head, you probably think that it’s only directed at Clinton, or at Rice. And you probably feel justified because yes, what they’ve done in the world makes an insult about their appearance pale in comparison. But those insults are being absorbed by other people in the form of collateral damage. If there’s a woman who looks like Condi Rice who is reading FS (or is reading similar statements elsewhere), it reinforces the idea that they too are ugly, and that others will see that as being a reflection of their inner self. And you are reinforcing the idea that when we see an “ugly” person on the street, we should maybe pause and wonder if that’s a reflection of their character. Maybe we shouldn’t hire them if they show up for a job interview, just in case they are ugly because they are evil, right? That’s what you’re reinforcing.
Every time a woman with (insert genetic characteristic) reads a comment mocking Hillary, or Condi, or Coulter for having (same genetic characteristic), that reader is a target as well. It’s not any different from the Kramer guy flinging racist slurs at his hecklers in a night club a while back. He felt he was attacking individuals who deserved it. But the world heard it as an attack against all black people, and really, that’s what it was. Same with attacking women based on gender and looks. You’re attacking all of us, myself included.
11 June 2008, 11:36 pmxenia:
Being partially handicapped and having been viewed as dark in northern Europe, my first instinct is to be protective of someone like Condi, and to psychologize her need to serve the white man as a reflection of humiliations caused by her lack of conventional beauty.
But when I’m talking of her ugliness, I do not refer to the lack of chiclet-teeth, so beloved by the American middle class (I do not have them myself).
I mean what I said: she is an ugly human being, and murderous toward black and brown people of this earth. I don’t see her ugliness as something dictated by her appearance. It shines through in the expression: it is there when she sneers, when she talks, when she casts an admiring glance toward “her husband…Mr Bush.” Given that she is black, it causes me pain to confess what I really think of her as I was writing it, and I do still have those protective-maternal feelings toward her, as well as some solidarity.
But as for Hillary or Ann Coulter, no. Zero. I do not have any compassion toward them. They are physically revolting to me precisely because they are Barbie-like, and I especially hate and despise their hair regime. But, unlike Condi, they have enough people who admire them and view them as physically beautiful and desirable. For every attack on Ann Coulter, she has someone lusting after her (including Michael Moore). Many so-called leftists who make fun of her immediately admit that they would like to have sex with her.
I cannot and will not retract what I said on the basis of mere politeness — it goes against what I believe in, culturally as well as personally. Someone who is cruel toward the weak does not deserve compassion….Even if this conviction should lead to my expulsion from the commentary section.
12 June 2008, 2:12 pmxenia:
“you probably think that it’s only directed at Clinton, or at Rice”
No — I almost never think in individualistic terms. It is directed against white women that I see at airports who have the same hair, the same fake smile, the same movements, the same clothes as Hillary or Coulter. It is directed against their husbands who view them as the ideal. This hatred is in my guts, in my heart, and in my head.
12 June 2008, 2:16 pmxenia:
Finally — I apologize for three statements one after another.
As I have expressed immoderately above, I find the conventions which dictate beauty in the US utterly fascistic: my ideal, if anything, leans toward a fat, dark matron with yellowed teeth and a big loud laughter and juicy jokes about sex. That is what I aspire to be.
I mean above all that the ugliness of the soul is reflected in the body. I find that Hillary, Ann at alia (including Chelsea) are monstrously ugly precisely **because** they are conventionally attractive. They obey corporate ideals, they look the part, they act correspondingly. They get rewarded for being 40-year-old juvenile Barbie dolls — they get hired!! They are in no way excluded from the hierarchy just because they are middle-aged women. They get fit into the patriarchal hierarchy, yes. But I’d rather look for beauty among people who make 6 dollars an hour than at high-caste female CEOs.
Ugliness to me is not physical — this is where you misunderstand me. I believe deeply that the soul reflects itself in the body and in speech. They are ugly because their souls and minds are ugly, doesn’t matter how many knife-cutting sessions they can afford.
Look at Bush’s pictures over the last ten years — they become considerably uglier the more evil his actions are, and the more aware he becomes of his power to kill and humiliate. Rosa Parks looks like a glowing angel even at an advanced age.
I admit that this may sound romanticizing or esoteric, but my ultimate purpose is this: it’s utterly important to emphasise the connection between the evil in the soul and in the actions in order to **de-erotisize** such people. No-one should find a Nazi attractive, no matter how muscled his body is and how friendly his smile.
12 June 2008, 2:54 pmGayle:
“Hillary Clinton’s shameless warmongering during the runup to the Iraq occupation led a small but significant sector of voters to declare early and often that she would never, ever receive their votes for anything (I am included in that number).”
And yet you say you’ll vote for Obama? Why, because he once made a speech to an anti-Iraq war crowd in an anti-Iraq war blue district? The same man who, after becoming a US. Senator, voted to fully fund the war–twice! Stunning!!
Really Stan, if you’re going to post on masculinity in this race at least acknowledge the fact that Hillary Clinton was held to an entirely different standard than her opponent. “Why, gosh darn it, if that little lady ain’t perfect, we aren’t voting for her!!” Well, aren’t you holier than thou.
And that revolting Tim Wise article. Are you kidding me? He tells white women to stand with “our black and brown sisters.” Well, guess what– My brown sisters voted for Clinton– by huge margins! To say nothing of my Asian sisters who also voted for Clinton. Why is it the vast majority of female Democratic voters have been ignored and demeaned when not threatened outright? Oh yes, it’s because we’re female.
“I will vote for Barack Obama in November, for a lot of reasons.”
You know I’ve read your initial post three times and I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If you were voting third party, as I am, I’d get it. But you’re voting for Obama? “for a lot of reasons.”
(???)
Stunned. I’m stunned.
15 June 2008, 9:30 pmRouenna:
Xenia, I think you do not understand Audrey’s points. If you are to criticize based on appearance, lodge said criticisms at both genders instead of just women. E.g. we never hear any opinions about the fact that say, Wolf Blitzer looks like a grey-haired gopher or that Bill Clinton’s skin resembles an overcooked hot dog. I suppose there are so many homely men on TV and in politics that this task might get a bit tedious… Aside from that, men are generally criticized for policy opinions, or policy actions; women, on the other hand are repeatedly degraded with regard to clothes, looks, age, and other cursory issues. If you want to lodge a complaint against someone like Hillary Clinton, base it on the FACTS, not your opinion of her deep inner ugly soul (you can’t prove that) or her cankles. Ah yes, but someone with your spurious arguments is probably too lazy to look through the thousands of government documents that easily establish the facts against Hillary Clinton–you’d rather talk about how she’s an aged Barbie.
Further, I have to say that the outright support for Saint Obama based on his “stunning record” seems to be terrifically naive. He is not some radical liberal who is going to deliver us from all evil, and every evil, amen (sign of the cross)! He is just as driven by power as Hillary Clinton or any other nasty politician we have seen. He is amazingly manipulative and almost Machiavellian in his recent maneuver to opt out of the public finance system. Despite great proposed tax increases, this liberal lover of the common person would not even agitate for socialized healthcare (horrors-did I say socialized?). Like the other candidates, he has taken donations from defense contractors. He voted against the Iraq Waste–I mean War–but he also voted, as Gayle noted, to fund it twice. He voted ‘present’ 130 times in his stint as Senator from Illinois. And, well, we can certainly expect real change (oh yes we can!) from a man whose advisers are Anthony Lake, Susan Rice, Madeleine Albright, Robert Rubin… Wait, aren’t these people from, uh…the CLINTON administration??? Wow! Change to policy from…the 90s??? These facts, in case anyone is interested, are cleverly concealed on public web sites.
Am I saying that I prefer war-mongering Repubs (represented by phony “kindly grandfather who loves us all” John McCain of the Keating 5…)? NO! But we need to be careful before we hurl our support behind a candidate. Indeed, we need to demand facts documenting specific actions taken that support our views before we fall madly in love with candidates. Until then, our political process will be morphed into personality worship, and the will of the common people will be squandered on egos who do little more than talk. We need a skeptical, pragmatic, and logical view of politics that does not substitute hero worship for debate.
22 June 2008, 2:51 amxenia:
Rouenna, haven’t you seen my point about Bush’s ugliness? and yes, I dislike the way most white men look too: their rosy and blotchy baby skin, their murderous grins, Bill Clinton’s pudgy nose, Kerry’s horse-like face…ugliness resides in them too. the more non-Americans and poor people in general they kill, the uglier their entire class is. to repeat: someone who is placed quite low on the socio-economic ladder must be allowed to make fun of the oligarchy to relieve themselves. Poor people have done it since the beginning of history and hierarchy, believe it or not?
I will only protect people who are weak. It doesn’t matter how much I hate Hilly and Billy and whatever their names are: my hatred cannot touch them. But knowing who my enemy is helps me: I am certainly not identifying with them or coveting their wealth or “elegance.”
Perhaps I was too busy scrubbing toilets to pay precise attention to Hillary’s crimes. Being a war refugee, I know enough about her. People among my friends and relatives are dying of cancer because of DU shells. That’s not pretty either, but in my mind, they are much prettier than Hillary.
I would love to be lazy, but I’m afraid I won’t have any bread on my table if I do so. Lazy to me is the knee-jerk response of defending Hillary. There is nothing I have in common with her — am I supposed to like her only because we both have a vagina? Hers was protected by the UN guys, mine was raped. Is that lazy, too?
25 June 2008, 4:01 pmxenia:
and of course, have you — i mean a bunch of people who got upset with my post — ever defended a single iraqi woman the way you defend hillary, with the same conviction and passion? the subtext is the same as for obama, the same as for people defending the poor britney spears, michael jackson, what have you…which is the reason that i cannot argue with americans any more. i’m tired of the misplaced pacifism of liberals while the country remains armed to the teeth and violent iraqi resistance makes y’all uncomfortable. i’m tired of seeing hillaries, madonnas and others being viewed as the proof that this world can be good to women, and that women “can make it if they try”.
oppressed, humiliated and exploited people are not nice, not smiling, not polite. they’ll smash th window of a store and set an embassy on fire. but you have better things to do than identifying with them.you and your empathy — you only give it to the rich so that you can dream of being one of them. i have lived in the us long enough to know your hearts.
25 June 2008, 4:16 pmCharles:
Really Stan, if you’re going to post on masculinity in this race at least acknowledge the fact that Hillary Clinton was held to an entirely different standard than her opponent.
^^^
27 June 2008, 9:17 amOnly if you admit that as a Black person , Obama was held to entirely different standard than Clinton. This whole lie that Obama was given an easy ride by the media was put out by Clinton ( and Saturday Night Live) as a sneak attack on Obama. Ferraro had the nerve to out and out state the Ku Klux Klan line that Obama had an advantage because he was Black ! You ain’t foolin’ us, believe me.
Charles:
That’s why the “threat of fasicsm” has to be used to excuse it; as the CPUSA has been doing for decades now to justify supporting Democrats. Don’t forget that rootless and I are both alums. We’ve seen this movie.
^^^^^
There has been a threat of fascism. You and rootless should reconsider what you learned. It’s truer than what your position now.
STAN: No, what rootless pointed out was that this threat (impending and repending now for many decades) is the rationale for “left-center unity,” with the “left” being the 300 strong (or whatever) Communist Party USA… one reason he accurately called it a myth. The CPUSA has been out of step with the left for a long time (beginning with its endorsement of putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII, and continuing today with its tepid opposition to that Democrat-embarrassing situation in Iraq and Afghanistan… where Obama has promised to remain and fight… well, let other people fight). On another point, Charles, you are carpet-bombing again… and the numerous posts we are not putting up are those that are serial endorsements for the Obama campaign. I suggest Daily KOS. They believe in suspending all criticism of Democrats over there, too.
27 June 2008, 9:54 amaudrey:
I am not convinced that men who rape women are picking up on these finer distinctions, that it’s okay to demean women based on their bodies – if and only if they fit certain subgroups of women. When we promote the notion that it’s good to bash women for not having “feminine” enough bodies (having an Adam’s apple, for instance), or for playing the balancing game of conforming to white patriarchal standards of beauty wrong (may shave legs, may wear heels, may not blowdry hair), we end up with a blanket message that women’s bodies are always inadequate and a subject for contempt; we reinforce male supremacy and contribute to the culture of rape and violence against women that many of us have been victims of.
Nobody here (that I saw) was “defending” Clinton or Coulter. They are, or at least I was, defending women as an oppressed class against a culture that says it’s okay to demean women for not doing the feminine/feminist dance the right way.
I was speaking out against the notion that all women in the public eye should be reduced to some sort of fuckability rating – because it sets the tone that all women, even those not in the public eye, even poor women, even women who are refugees, should be reduced in this way. This way of assessing women overshadows war, policies, economics, anything of substance in the news. Earlier in that same day of my initial response, I’d been holding this site up elsewhere as an example of a blog where people can discuss issues without reducing women to the size of their chest, the style of their clothes, the way they wear their hair. Whether or not they have an Adam’s apple. Was I wrong on that?
I remember when Cynthia McKinney wore her hair natural and the media declared it a national crisis and went to nearly 24 hour emergency coverage of The Event.
I can’t figure out a way in which constantly expressing disapproval of women based on their looks is going to do anything other than add to the objectification and dehumanization of all women. I can’t figure out a way in which objectifying women and dehumanizing them does anything other than contribute to a rape culture – even if you add a footnote saying it’s okay cause you think Kerry is ugly, too, as if it’s okay to demean women so long as you make an effort to demean some men as well. (Rouenna and I disagree on that point.)
Out here in Michigan, people are still being killed for not doing their gender roles right. When I see someone beaten to death for looking too femme or too butch, then I log in here and see people gloating because a woman they don’t like has an Adam’s apple, I see that you are part of the problem. The people who are in a position to be victimized by the values and culture you are promoting are, well, the people in a position to be victimized.
I am not sure if you see promoting visceral hatred of enemy women’s bodies as being an entirely separate thing from ritual raping of women during war. I don’t think it is.
27 June 2008, 3:31 pmBarbara:
Dear Stan Goff,
Thank you for many things, one of them your activation of exceptionally lively on-line discourse.
I hope you’ll post a response to Gayle (and, perhaps, to Robert Jensen’s ancillary post, at DissidentVoice.org, on what transpires from questions cc. masculinity/femininity that he asks of his students?).
– from a long-ago student at Woman’s College
1 July 2008, 10:04 pmCharles:
STAN: No, what rootless pointed out was that this threat (impending and repending now for many decades) is the rationale for “left-center unity,” with the “left” being the 300 strong (or whatever) Communist Party USA… one reason he accurately called it a myth.
^^^
CB: Yea, I know rootless is saying this. I’ve heard it , ooohhh, 750 times or so from Trotskyists and various other lefties. I’M DISAGREEING WITH IT.
^^^
The CPUSA has been out of step with the left for a long time (beginning with its endorsement of putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII, and continuing today with its tepid opposition to that Democrat-embarrassing situation in Iraq and Afghanistan… where Obama has promised to remain and fight… well, let other people fight).
^^^^
CB: The CP has run more people for President and other offices than the “left” from what I count. The “left” you refer to is mostly talk, although , I do work with the fearcely anti-Democratic Party left in practice, and of course , they have a big place in the inter-net left.
^^^^^
On another point, Charles, you are carpet-bombing again… and the numerous posts we are not putting up are those that are serial endorsements for the Obama campaign. I suggest Daily KOS. They believe in suspending all criticism of Democrats over there, too
^^^^^
CB: You must be mistaken. You have posted all my posts lately. None have been dropped. I got no complaints. You are doing a good job (smile)
On “carpetbombing”, I got another name for your raving/raging posts ( you know when you’ve been up all night or whatever) : “napalming”.
22 July 2008, 5:07 pmCharles:
What about everybody constantly referring to Clinton as “Hillary” ? I started referring to Obama as “Barry” and Clinton as “Clinton”.
22 July 2008, 5:23 pm