Men are pigs

[pecunium]

I like to think of myself as a feminist.

There are feminists who disagree. I also tend to think of myself as middle of the road, there are liberals, and conservatives who disagree.

My take on this is simple, women are people, as such they are entitled to the same treatement, rights, privileges and hassles that I am.

I understand the game, at present, is fucked up and that sometimes a stink must be made. This is also my feelings on (insert minority group here).

Right now I am in Kiev. A lovely city, with a lot of wonderful people, good food, pleasant weather (at present... we'll not discuss what it's like in the sleet, the snow, nor the slush) and a different culture of dress. It's also, for all that it's miles apart from most of Ukraine, economically depressed in comparison to lots of Europe, and North America.

I like to look at women. In some ways I look at them as objects. I also look at men, horses, cats, statues, books, poems, etc. as objects. A pretty girl (by my lights) gets looked at. This, so far as I can see, in no way invalidates my views on her as a person. I am not any more likely to talk to her for being stunning, nor am I the less likely to talk to her if she isn't (the visual record of my lovers is about the only way I can prove this, and for that to work one would have to know what I think makes a woman visually attractive, which ain't possible, you will have to accept my self-delusion [because I know that looks do affect some of how I choose whom to flirt with, though that isn't the usual way I end up with a lover... I'm not that aggressive, but I digress).

Kiev, is a great place to look at women. The style of summer dress is not easy to describe. It isn't skimpy, but it is revealing. It isn't purely skin-tight, but it can be. Some forms of translucent, and see through, are completely acceptable (there is a lass in the mess who doesn't seem to mind that anyone who looks at her can tell the lace, pattern, and cut, of her underwear, since she is one, tall, and two, wearing heels, her underwear is at eye level when I am sitting down. She is serving three removes to twenty five people. It's hard for me to not notice).

Tonight, in the hotel, is a some sort of "marriage club" meeting. Women are mingling with a few men, and making video tapes and phorotgraphs to show to other men, looking for brides. It feels cheap. I know why they are doing it. They are hoping for a better life, and (though they know it's not as likely as all that, a decent husband. Like their grandmothers they hope love will come later. Unlike their grandfathers, the men who are looking to marry them aren't under the expectation that they have to work at making that love reciprocal).

And I hear the men, some of them in the crowd I am here with, talking about the women as though they weren't really people. As if the fact of being able to look at them as objects entitles the men to interact with them as objects. It appalls me.

Hearing men say they wish they could get a Ukrainian wife, saying they'd never want her to learn English, in the belief that would prevent her from learning the nasty things American women know, and come to the terrible expectations Western women have. In short they want a cross between a maid and a sex-toy.

For some I know it's just atavistic fantasy, because when I point out that keeping them in an aritifical cage will only lead to intellectual atrophy and frustration and them deciding the lifestyle, and the chance at citizenship aren't worth the candle they will leave (and that could get ugly, because they can only stay if they get married, which means in a state like California, the divorce can get ugly. I don't know for certain, but I'll bet it could get uglier if they knew how to show the marriage was entered into in bad faith on the husband's part).

But it still appalls me. I'm strange, I just can't understand how people can think like that. How they can see someone, in the abstract, as less than human.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

You rock, but you know that.

There have been some very nasty cases of mail-order bride abuse -- including one guy who murdered two in a row.

[urox.livejournal.com]

This world is devolving into a "me first always" (as opposed to a "me first because one should take time for his/herself"). That leads to a sense of entitlement people feel to take from others for themselves.

We've got a long way to go to the point where entitlement is unlearned. There are still women out there who get accused of "asking for sexual assault/rape" if they dress a certain way.

[sethg]

Cf. Feministe, blogging a Harper's essay about marriage brokers who take men on tours of the Ukraine.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Tonight, in the hotel, is a some sort of "marriage club" meeting. Women are mingling with a few men, and making video tapes and phorotgraphs to show to other men, looking for brides. It feels cheap. I know why they are doing it. They are hoping for a better life, and (though they know it's not as likely as all that, a decent husband. Like their grandmothers they hope love will come later. Unlike their grandfathers, the men who are looking to marry them aren't under the expectation that they have to work at making that love reciprocal).

And I hear the men, some of them in the crowd I am here with, talking about the women as though they weren't really people. As if the fact of being able to look at them as objects entitles the men to interact with them as objects. It appalls me.

And me. But I was at something like that tonight, in the civilised West. I hate it.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I do sometimes wonder things, like how many fewer offers of rides I'd have to turn down if I were male, or how much less people might disapprove of my bluntness. I didn't even notice sexism for a long time because I was not only too young for even classical jailbait but also in nearly male-only environments, and specifically ones where skill was highly respected. As I got older, it took beating them by a wider margin to get respect, but it was years before I realized that might have something to do with my being female.

"You want a slave," I said

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

...to my ex-Navy NCO co-worker who had been whining for several weeks about his dumping by his "unreasonable" ex-girlfriend - in between bouts of trying to pick me up by insinuating that I, being so ugly, had to be desperate and he was the only one willing to do me the favor of letting me bask in his masculine presence - until I finally attempted to tease out of his nonstop whinging *what* exactly was so awful about his ex. (He had apparently assumed I would join in the traditional female sport of rival-bashing, when provided an opening, and when I didn't it threw the routine off completely.)

It turned out that she expected a reciprocal relationship, expected of him *exactly* what he expected of her and nothing more - some consideration, some information, some freedom to associate with one's own friends and have one's own life, and not a one-way requirement to be "available" and silent towards verbal abuse when the other person was pissed off.

"You mean you expect her to just put up with you telling her when she must be home, but never ask you when you're going to be back? to clean *your* house for you, and cook you dinner, and never ask you to do chores too? What is *she* supposed to be getting out of this?" He looked at me, boggled.

"What you want is a *slave*, not a lover," I said.

There was a pause.

"Well,...*yeah*" he admitted, with a note of defiance.

"Good luck finding one, I said, and went back to setting my machinery on my workstation. He was not, to put it mildly, an Adonis, and no prize in any other regard, even if he had made enough money to buy a Harley - that was where all his money had gone. I was mildly amazed that his unknown ex had put up with him as long as she had.

"I wish things were like the were in the old days," he sighed, "when women were happy to do everything a man wanted and never expected anything different."

"You didn't know my grandmother," I said. "There never was any good old days."

[reproduced, as word-for-word as I can recall it, from late winter, 1992-93]

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Of course those men looking for pliable, vulnerable, controllable wives are looking abroad. They can't find women here who would have any reason to put up with their sorry, entitled, white (most likely) asses.

Re: "You want a slave," I said

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

If there is any justice in this world, that man will die alone without having had any sex for decades.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

We ran up against the same sort of thing when we were there for an immersion trip in August 04.

We were attending classes at the university in Sevastopol - a group of eight men and three women. All three of us dressed pretty much the way we would dress to go to a college here in the US - jeans, a shirt (either a fitted t-shirt or a blouse) and sandals.

The Ukrainian women were almost all dressed up like we would dress to go to the club. To school, to shop, to EVERYWHERE - all the time. We had it explained to us that there's pretty insane pressure to get married quick, before all the good ones were gone.

Needless to say, most of the men in our group REALLY enjoyed the trip. Pretty women, cheap and decent beer, and good food.

Another factor that we women noticed was that a vast majority of the Ukrainian men did not notice at all. They apparently thought it was their due to be surrounded by hot women who subordinate themselves to your whims, and oh yes cook and clean like fiends. It was very rare for us to see a Ukrainain male of our age group (20-30) who looked like he had taken some care. (Which was really a surprise, because when we were studying at DLI, the Ukrainian men were all very fastidious about their dress)

Needless to say, the three women were glad to come home.

DV

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to do a little mind experiment - my personal situation is that of having found a boyfriend/husband not of my own country, and going to live with him. (That was over 20 years ago. We're still together, so something's right, anyway.)

But for him to have insisted that I not learn the local language of my new home would have placed a heavy burden on himself. Not just short term, either, what with all the little things one needs to do outside the home like shopping for food and clothing, dealing with the everyday household expenses... later on, I'm thinking, he'd have had those strictures on the foreign wife rebound onto himself, in terms of how it would limit the effectiveness of her companionship: contrasted against a companionship of equals, which allowed to develop over time, is a lot less work, than for a man to attempt to hold all the privilege, and then expect his information/development/stimuation deprived wife to still provide those aspects of companionship that remain after the post-orgasmic glow has gone.

I was starting this out thinking, "That would be really sad for the man." But, thinking about the utter atrophy of humanity required to lead to such a condition, I'm realizing that I can see, and be scared by, how "logically" such a man would come to concluding that murdering his wife was the only way forward.

Yeesh.

Crazy(and going to scrub her brain, and get a cuddle from her dear_hubby soonest)Soph

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't know how they do it, but there are times when i feel that a majority of humans don't perceive other humans in general as quite real. if not a majority, then a large, significant number of people. not a day goes past that i don't see evidence for that.

one especially bad aspect of this sort of situation is that hardly anyone ever speaks up. of course not all men are like this, and no, not even all those who go abroad to find a wife. but when the objectifying talk gathers speed, few men ever point out the idiocies of that particular fantasy, or say "that's not what i want in a wife. i want [insert actually thoughtful criteria].". that'd be what, a violation of male bonding protocol? and the scariest alternative to objectifying strangers, talking about what one actually feels, what one dreams about, what worries one -- oh no, that's right out. nonono. one doesn't want to bring one's true feelings into this, that'd mark one as a wimp right there. *sigh*.

and so it perpetuates itself usually unchallenged, that type of talk, that type of thought. and it is impoverishing -- not only for the women talked about, but the men doing the talking, and other men through guilt-by-association. and how sad is that? there is so very much more to a good relationship than dinner, sex, and somebody who washes the wet spot out the next day, and anyone who doesn't know that will fail miserably at it, every time.

really, a cross between a cook, a maid and a sex-toy would be great -- i'd like to have one too. hey, could it come with a pony? but i don't want that fantasy creature (make it a robot, since i don't actually want a slave, *shudder*) to also be my life partner. because partnership is certainly not about chores, and not even about sex. people really do need to learn to not conflate all those roles.

(hi. i don't think i've commented before. i'm here because you popped up on my friendsfriends list now and then and i find your writing thoughtful.)

[(Anonymous)]

I keep trying to explain to people that my being a feminist means that I advocate that men and women should have equal worth and rights over their own bodies in the eyes of society, and that I am fighting 'the patriarchy' rather than 'all men', and that yes, the little things do matter and no, I know the system also wrongs men, but I want to forward the pro-woman side first because it wrongs them more, and I can't also fight racism, classism, ageism because I only have so much righteous anger to go around. It's tough to get the point across and great to read someone who does take the equal-rights-for-all approach. Also, your description of Kiev is wonderful.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I think I probably just accidentally commented anonymously. Oops. It was about equal ops for all and liking what you wrote about Kiev.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

really, a cross between a cook, a maid and a sex-toy would be great -- i'd like to have one too. hey, could it come with a pony?

In some ways that describes my life, though I am the cook, maid and sex-toy, she brought her own pony to the equation.

I make light of it, but in fact, I am just this side of a kept man (her income makes up the greater part of the whole), where the equation the guys looking for a maid with benefits fails to match is that she sees me as a person. When we have problems she doesn't say, "I'm paying the bills, do it my way or I'll toss you on the street," but rather goes to a lot of effort to see to it that we find ways to work things out, and sees that our histories, rearings and methods of solving problems are different; which has, of course, made some things worse.

Me, I break the bonding rituals you describe all to pieces. I've been venting, to other guys here, about how the idiots here make me want to wring their necks. The shit I was hearing at the next table over during breafast... Ghod!

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You did, but this counts as ID, and so it's now posted.

I'm not sure I've done such a great job, this year, of describing Kiev. Some comments on girls, idjits and food.

Thanks anywyay.

I understand the problems of only so much righteous anger to go around. When I have more time I stretch my meagre supply by borrowing other peoples and posting links. The rest of the time, well I make it go as far as I can.

TK

It's not "me first", it's "me stupid".

[thesideshow.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of guys who are dumb enough to believe that they can aspire to having nothing more in a wife than a sex toy and house slave, and yet they expect to be desired as more than a meal ticket. Then they feel ripped off when they realize they are just a meal ticket (and she always has a headache).

Then again, there are women who see men only as economic support and think looking for more than that in a man is a waste of time.

If you live in a world where men and women have nothing to talk to each other about, no real shared interests, no similarities of tastes - as the stereotype does indeed have it - this makes a kind of sense. It just isn't very much fun.

[loveguide.livejournal.com]

Kiev is really a nice place. But I'd like to recommend you another one great city Odessa. If you're looking for beautiful women it's the very place.