Dispatch #39 May 8th 2018
Day 557 Post-Ascendency of White Supremacy & Misogyny
Day 482 Post-Installation of White-Supremacist-Misogynist-Pussy- Grabbing-Self-Aggrandizing-Demagogic-Bully-Illegitimate-PeeeOTUS & his White-Nationalist-Fascistic-Christian-Supremacist-Quislings
On this day, May 8th, when the White-Supremacist-Misogynist-Banana-Republic-Demagogue-Money-Laundering-Thug-Illegitimate-PeeeOTUS abrogates and incinerates an international effort to avoid military and nuclear confrontation in the Middle East, while at the same time continuing his vicious and unprecedented campaign to undo every single action of the first black American President, I grieve the failure, by even progressive colleagues, to recognize AND understand why we are witnessing 21st Century American Fascism. The unwillingness to see the interaction of three structures/forces.
This Ascendency of Fascism in America is the
Consequence of Institutionalized White Supremacy and Misogyny
Animated by Global Capitalism.
Face It!! This is what Structural Misogyny/Patriarchy has Wrought:
White-Supremacist-Misogynist-Demagogic-Illegitimate-PeeeOTUS
who Promotes Bigotry, Fear, Division, Cruelty, & Greed
White Americans ARE slowly stumbling toward increased awareness about the consequences of structural White Supremacy being the poisonous foundation of America: the legacy of slavery and genocide, the history of state-sanctioned terrorism against black citizens that continues to this day, the exploitation of poor people and people of color at home and abroad, the imperialist behaviors and wars imposed on countries with majority people of color. A few notable discussions:
Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys
Jim Crow Laws Are Gone But They’re Still Making Black People Sick
Unfortunately, the refusal/inability/resistance to recognize the equally toxic and deadly-disabling consequences of structural Misogyny persists. This pernicious oppression, so deeply embedded in every breath, every image, every heartbeat, is so insidiously ubiquitous that society without the male-dominant and female-subordinate dyad cannot be imagined. Structural White Supremacy is enabled and nourished by Structural Misogyny – the normative practice of objectifying and denigrating the not-male Other, the first oppression, the enduring patriarchy, now and forever a-men.
To paraphrase James Baldwin, just as the white person seeks dominate, denigrate and despise the black person in order to feel powerful, so the men seek to dominate, denigrate and despise women. As I have argued in my last two dispatches, sexual harassment is a weak and insufficient descriptor; dominance and abuse of power driven by Misogyny is the accurate descriptor, this language must inform the reform.
In her article titled ‘Terry Crews: Men Don’t See Women As ‘All the Way Human,’’ Madeleine Aggeler reports from Women in the World Summit where actor and #MeToo activist Terry Crews talked about the “cult of toxic masculinity” and how men often fail to perceive women as “all the way human.”
This is what happens with men and women. […] As a woman, they talk, but a guy is not looking at you as even all the way human. This is what you have to understand — there is a humanity issue here,” he continued. “[Women are] like, ‘Why don’t you hear me? Why don’t you see my feelings?’ And [men are] like, ‘But you’re not all the way human. You’re here for me, you’re here for my deal.’ It’s real. www.thecut.com/2018/04/terry-crews-women-of-the-world-summit-cult-of-masculinity.html
In her article titled ‘Sexual Harassment Should Be Treated As A Hate Crime,’ Sally Kohn argues for more explicitly accurate language that can define remedies.
Rather, sexual assault is a kind of hate. The men who gratify themselves by abusing women aren’t getting off on those women, but on power. These men don’t sexually assault women because they like women but because they despise them as subordinate creatures. We should call it misogynistic harassment and misogynistic assault, not sexual assault. These are hate crimes.
We need to fight the misogyny, sexism and the systemic marginalization of women and disproportionate empowerment of men. That’s what creates the society-wide dynamic in which men think they’re better than women. This dynamic is evident in gender pay gaps; in the unequal burden of domestic chores; in the election of overt misogynists to the presidency; and in the subjection of women to harassment, assault and rape. The truth is that none of these are aberrant behaviors by aberrant men, or even aberrant forms of affection. They’re the predictable dynamics of a society that hates women. www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/11/sexual-harassment-should-be-treated-as-a-hate-crime/
Gee, who knew that women can be so mean because we now have an online hate group known as InCels – Involuntary Celibates – feeling so aggrieved because they can’t get laid that they just need to go kill women and anyone else who might happen to be nearby. www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/04/30/feminists-were-right-ignoring-online-misogyny-has-deadly-consequences/
If we are going to dismantle structural Misogyny, then we must insist on language that communicates, and does not obfuscate, reality. We must insist on blunt, provocative, outraged and outrageous language. We will not moderate our language, we will not be concerned about protecting men, and we will be incendiary. Structural Misogyny means intentional injustice and inequities for women. As Audre Lorde instructs us, the master’s tools and rules will not take down the master’s house.
The most egregious recent narrative premised the neat trick of ‘denying-misogyny-while-imposing-misogyny’ is of course the 2016 Presidential election. Despite the normalizing and fictional analyses that were spun immediately about Hillary’s failures as a candidate and the economic grievances of the working class, the fact remains that the majority of middle and upper income white men and women, including white evangelicals, preferred to vote for racist hate-mongering misogynist ignorant criminal con man, whose life reflects the singular purpose to enrich himself, rather than to vote for a woman. The media and the Democrats continue to regurgitate the lie about Hillary’s election loss, a warning and a threat to other ambitious women from those empowered by Misogyny.
In his article ‘Trump Voters Driven by Fear of Losing Status, Not Economic Anxiety, Study Finds,’ Niraj Chokshi discusses the significance of the findings:
Ever since Donald J. Trump began his improbable political rise, many pundits have credited his appeal among white, Christian and male voters to “economic anxiety.” Hobbled by unemployment and locked out of the recovery, those voters turned out in force to send Mr. Trump, and a message, to Washington.
Or so that narrative goes.
A study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences questions that explanation, the latest to suggest that Trump voters weren’t driven by anger over the past, but rather fear of what may come. White, Christian and male voters, the study suggests, turned to Mr. Trump because they felt their status was at risk.
“It’s much more of a symbolic threat that people feel,’’ said Diana C. Mutz, the author of the study and a political science and communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics. “It’s not a threat to their own economic well-being; it’s a threat to their group’s dominance in our country over all.”
Her survey also assessed “social dominance orientation,” a common psychological measure of a person’s belief in hierarchy as necessary and inherent to a society. People who exhibited a growing belief in such group dominance were also more likely to move toward Mr. Trump, Dr. Mutz found, reflecting their hope that the status quo be protected. “It used to be a pretty good deal to be a white, Christian male in America, but things have changed and I think they do feel threatened,” Dr. Mutz said. www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
Dr. Mutz’s examination of status – i.e., social dominance orientation and the concomitant belief in the importance of hierarchy to social order — reveals that white men in America feel threatened not only by people of color taking power, but also by women taking power. The immediate personal threat to a man’s status, any man of any color, is a woman refusing to be dominated and demanding her agency. The disabling/deadening/death-dealing effect of Structural Misogyny intends to make sure that most women will not be able to take their power.
So yeah, a record number of women are running for office; already many women are winning in special elections and primaries. This also means that the War on Women powered by Structural Misogyny is being ramped up and relentlessly waged.
Above the fold headline on the April 19th front page of the Washington Post shouted out the terms of engagement for the November 2018 Mid-terms: abortion will be the weapon, women’s bodies the battlefield.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abortion-wars-are-heating-up-ahead-of-november-elections/2018/04/19/
The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers. — Adrienne Rich
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