Filed under: Gender
Men determine popularity in high school. This is what I was told the
other day by a student in my class, at the time I was shocked and appalled,
but he explained that wasn’t a personal opinion later. I will be writing
this essay on why i agree with this, and why I am so angry that it is
true.
I found this statement to be fundamentally true, and to say something is
true is to give it worth, this statements worth comes from the fact that
it has a fundamental fact in it. As society at large moves on into a new
century, aside from clothes, and music, school hasn’t changed in 200
years, in a society where sexism has mostly died, in schools it runs
rampant. Perhaps you think I am wrong with this, but think of it, in your
high school, did you see many women who were independently popular? No,
they were popular because guys like them, not because girls liked them,
because girls who are popular are usually hated by girls, because guys
loved them. Why are gay men not popular usually? Because they are viewed
as strange by other men, and are thus ostracized and alienated by guys,
even though usually they will be loved by girls.
I am angry that this statement is true because our society is claiming
that it is making leaps and bounds towards the advancement of a non male
dominated society, but I say that this is NOT true, if anything in schools
society has been slowly reversing. More and more culture is viewing women
as commodities, I view his partly the fault of music, but not as most
would have you believe rap music, if you dig a little bit you can find
socially aware rap music, just like any other. I blame mainstream music
in general for the degradation of the role of gender blurring people and
women, because it poses femininity as a weakness, which it isn’t actually,
I know many girls who have much more emotional strength than any guy I
know, including myself. I believe the reason men pose femininity as a
weakness is womb envy, we fear women because they have the ability to d
something that requires more endurance than any man alive has, give birth,
this is womb envy. I know that I fear birth, because I imagine shitting
out something three inches wide, and 8 pounds, and think of how painful it
would be. So, as a conclusion, I would advise female students to stay
strong, men are cruel from fear, not hatred.
Filed under: Anarchism, Gender | Tags: kilt, male, man, queer, redneck, Sex, straight
I am going to give you a little background on me, as it will make this article make more sense if you know a few things about me. I am 23, white male, pretty nondescript other than this idea I have that people need control of their own lives in order for anything good to happen in this world. Even my sex life is pretty pedestrian (for an anarchist anyway). I am in a semi-committed long term monogamous relationship with a female, imagine my shame. I don’t mean to state that there is any dissatisfaction on my part with that, I am quite pleased with that aspect of my life, and don’t really feel the need to change anything. It is just that one of the great mystiques we have going for us as anarchists is sex. Everyone will agree that there is a lot of alternative lovin’ going on in the movement, be it polygamous, queer, mixed, chicken-on-goat, whatever, we are a pretty open minded bunch and that shows not only in our sex lives but our acceptance of others sexualities.
“So what does a white-bread anarchist like you have to say about such things?”, you may find yourself asking. Well I may not as white-bread as I lead you to believe. I own (in as much as an anarchist can be said to own anything) and regularly wear a kilt. I like my kilt, I think I look good in it (the ladies tend to agree, as do many men of several sexualities), and it is probably the most comfortable garment I own. For the most part people react positively to it, I have had many pleasant conversations started because of it, and have received every compliment you can imagine ranging from wolf whistles sent my way by a gaggle of sorority girls to construction workers stating that I must have “brass balls the size of watermelons to be walking around like that”. I have had my looks compared to Sir Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, and inexplicably Muhammad Ail, and it has been a frankly wonderful experience.
But it isn’t all sunshine and ponies. I have had rednecks flying the Confederate Flag off the back of their jacked up Ram scream “Hey faggot where’s your purse?”, I have been denied service at restaurants, and have narrowly avoided far too many fights to be started over and article of clothing. Our society places us in boxes whether we like it or not, and one of those boxes is “man”. As a man society expects certain things of us, that we won’t cry, that we like sports, and that we wear pants. Even though the kilt is unquestionable a male garment, I still regularly receive “nice skirt girl” comments from time to time, and plenty of other obnoxious remarks.
And I know I don’t even have it hard. I have grown up thick skinned, and have had no more than a fair share of hardship in my life. However when having a discussion with some of my kilted friends, I learned that a few of them have overcome serious clinical depression, and often their symptoms abated after wearing their first kilt. While the benefits of crotchal comfort and the joys of individuality are obvious to be found in a kilt, it is doubtful that this alone will cure someone of suicidal thoughts. So then what could have lead to their recovery? Perhaps it is the acknowledgement that since they don’t need to conform the the rules society lays out for them as to what to wear, maybe they don’t need to conform to a lot of other “rules”.
