The Burning Times: fascinating docu on women's power before Christianity

Garlicbutter-
i was talking about a hypothetical friend in this instance but its not too hypothetical as ive seen this loads of times.
which brings me back to the word desensitisasion-
vicious circle eh!

Milly - yes, and some people also respond better to forms like poetry than to other things. If poetry is what moves you to think 'Oh, wow, this is what's happening to me' or 'Oh, I see the problem now', it's as good to you as a Reclaim the Night march might be to someone else.

I don't disagree with what (I think) you're saying, Tyr.

But we need to bear in mind that these threads are discussions - means to examine issues, hear other takes on them and, hopefully, to develop.

SAF, I don't think you're incomprehensible. I just think (although I could be wrong) that you're describing a psychological process where people fuse mental and emotional states when experiencing the world. I think you've done that in a few posts - one where you were describing how women repsond to having false ideas put on them, and one where you describe overcoming that.

I think people can recognise that, but a lot of people have a hard time expressing it, which is why stuff like that often is expressed through forms like poetry. It is central to changing ourselves as women, but many people find it hard to describe how that feels.

SAF - don't feel like that! I don't think you're a poor communicator, but let's be fair to ourselves: a lot of the time we're discussing complex ideas, and we're doing it on the spur of the moment, over the internet and often being interrupted by flurries of other people posting and trying to do the same. I sometimes feel like a right idiot because no matter how I say it, I can't seem to get across what I mean. But it's not because we're bad at it, it's because it's difficult.

(sorry for the rant - pet hate is women saying 'oh, it must be I'm a bad communicator' when it is so patently Not Them. My student who wrote a first-class essay that stunned me responded to half the comments I made with 'oh, I put that badly'. No, you didn't!)

Garlicbutter,

Speculation and imagination are wonderful if, as you say, they are accepted as that.
I am old enough to recognise a tendency in some to speculate and sieze fragments of a wider picture in history to justify a stance; in this case, the witch trials.
It is analogous to the skewed approach to history taken by race hate groups and sectarian bigots in Ireland where I grew up.
The results are just more hatred.

Yeah, sparky, that is internalised defeatism :( I used to be the same.

Because it is WRONG to intimidate another person with violence, it SHOULD be reported to the police.
Because, if you don't report it, the crime stats get skewed and the lawmakers won't know how much of an issue it is.
Because the law (now) protects people like your friend, even if it does so badly. Because, when you report it, you can add something to the police experience of this type of crime.
Because all the other "because"s feed into each other: victims can make a difference.
And because reporting it helps you to KNOW that it is wrong!

Ooh, girls! I think Tyr likes me! Let be with this feminism lark, I shall go forth to paint my nails pink and wait in breathless anticipation for his next manly remark.

Anyway, Tyr, what exactly did I get wrong in terms of facts, dates and geography? I am a leetle surprised someone who thinks a sphere has 'ends' is correcting me on the last of these issues, but nevertheless ...

I don't think you quite understand modern marriage law if you think being married makes me 'livestock', by the way. He doesn't actually own me, you know. Which (contrary to what you seem to think), somehow doesn't blind me to the fact that other women are owned, sold, abused and killed by their husbands.

[im interested in why/how it happens]
Garlicbutter-im not sure whether im understanding youre post but.....
maybe its.....woman gets her door kicked in/windows done/beat up by her boyfriend and i comfort her and help her to clean up the mess/secure her door/get someone to fix window=she dont bother calling the police and i dont bother telling her to as we both know its a waste of time.
if her boyfriend ends up in court he will just get a slap on the wrist and it could make the situation worse for her if he goes to court.
internalized defeatism?

LRD, sweetie.... speculate, postulate and rant to your heart's content. Let not facts, dates, geography or any of those other troublesome intrusions hinder you. I'll content myself with laughing at the results; actually quite a good deal.
On a parting note, you mentioned a husband so you seem to have embraced the status of "livestock" yourself.
Oh dear.....

Milly, thanks for posting that ... that is how I feel too, about translating into my thought patterns.

I think I get as angry and upset and fired up by things that happen, and yes they're in the past and in that sense could look irrelevant or like side issues ... but to me, the way my mind works, they're part of the same thing we all get upset and angry about. I'm not picking on issues from the past because I want to browse gently through some academic ponderings (I mean, sometimes I do, obviously, like to do that) - I'm picking on these issues because they're so much at the forefront of what I'm thinking about, and they seem to me so clearly mapped onto what's happening to all of us right now.

GB, I also think part of it is because we are on an internet forum. We don't want to describe exactly how we have been victims, or our friends have been victims, in such a public space. It would be personal and distressing and then made more so by trolling.

I doubt many women posting on here need to justify to themselves that they have been victims of something, and we don't need to justify it to other people on here either.

SAF, a lot of it just different people have different ways of expressing their ideas, to both themselves and other people. So I would find it hard to express myself in the way that you do, but I still agree with what you're saying; it is just that I have to translate what you are saying into my thought patterns.

Actually, I agree with this: Lastly, the fact that you would use the term ?MRA? as an insult and an accusation is every bit as bigoted as the enemies (real and imagined) you rail against.

And this: some of you will speculate to validate a sense of victimhood.
As Milly says, there's nothing wrong with speculation as long as you know that's what you're doing.

My initial feminist activity, in the 1970s, was prompted by a sense of 'rightness' - a kind of instinctual feminism - which, I now know, came from my internalised feeling of 'otherness'. I wasn't, at that time, aware that I was indeed a victim. I've subsequently come to understand myself much better and to understand those who harmed me. This informs my current feminism, almost as much as my long-term involvement with feminism has.

I sometimes feel irritated with younger feminists here (and they are almost all younger) just as my elders did in the 70s! But, now, I understand that most are on a personal as well as a political journey.

Hope that made at least some sense.

Thanks SAF, will go see if I can order it (my librarian gets really confused ... half my books are 14th century manuscript culture and the other half are recs off these threads!)

Oh ... my cross-post apology was cross-posted. Sorry.

Yes, SAF, I think that's why we clash. I think as well, it's quite easy to see academia as a misogynist institution and to feel angry and impatient with people inside that institution who seem to be making such tiny amounts of progress ... I do get that, I feel like that myself sometimes. But then I also feel furious that if I say something even vaguely feminist in certain academic circles, I will (I'm not kidding or exaggerating) be systematically punished for it, and probably, ultimately excluded from that area. And then, if I'm kicked out, I watch it becoming more sexist and see more young women getting dragged down by misogynist rhetoric and sexist justifications of why feminism is wrong.

Cross-post - yes, I see SAF. I guess for me (it may just be the way my mind works), that sort of stuff is necessary too. Not as a substitute for action, but as an alternative. I don't think it's always well done, but imo it needs doing. For two reasons: firstly, because I notice, and feel depressed by, texts and analyses and 'academic' stuff that marginalizes or mocks women, and I think there's a lot of it. Secondly, because this stuff is internalized, it's not purely physical and therefore there needs to be an effort to work out exactly how and why women have been conditioned to use their own minds against themselves. We need to develop strong arguments that apply to all areas of life, so academics must be one of them.

But that's just my view, and it is a slanted one I know. I just so often find myself arguing with actual, misogynist academics that I really, really need to find and explain what is wrong with what they are saying and wrong with what they are teaching. So that's where I come from on it.

I've no idea what you're talking about Tyr. People will speculate and discuss these things as comfort to themselves. Most of us are women; we're not always doing it for someobody else. Ther's nothing wrong with speculation if you're aware that is what it is.