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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-09-25 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 6
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GOOD So. RAT has been liberated, for this week at least. Next week? The men return to reinstate the porny photos, the sexist comic strips, the “nude-chickie” covers (along with their patronizing rhetoric about being in favor of Women’s Liberation) - if this happens, our alternatives are clear. RAT must be taken over permanently by women – or RAT must be destroyed. Why RAT? Why not EVO or even the obvious new pornzines (Mafia-distributed alongside the human pornography of prostitution)? First, they’ll get theirs - but it won’t be a takeover, which is reserved for something at least worth taking over. Nor should they be censored. They should just be helped not to exist - by any means necessary. But RAT, which has always tried to be a really radical cum life-style paper - that’s another matter. It’s the liberal co-optative masks on the face of sexist hate and fear, worn by real nice guys we all know and like, right? We have met the enemy and he is our friend. And dangerous. “What the hell, let the chicks do an issue; maybe it’ll satisfy ‘em for a while, it’s a good controversy, and it’ll maybe sell papers” - runs an unheard conversation that I’m sure took place at some point last week. And that’s what I wanted to write about - the friends, brothers, lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left. The good guys who think they know what “Women’s Lib,” as they so chummily call it, is all about - and who then proceed to degrade and destroy women by almost everything they say and do: The cover on the last issue of RAT (front and back). The token “pussy power” or “clit militancy of” articles. The snide descriptions of women staffers on the masthead. The little jokes, the personal ads, the smile, the snarl. No more, brothers. No more well-meaning ignorance, no more assuming that this thing we’re all fighting for is the same: one revolution under man, with liberty and justice for all. No more. Let’s run it on down. White males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? White males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It just could make one a bit uneasy. It seems obvious that a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most depressed: black, brown, and white women - with men relating to that the best they can. A genuine Left doesn’t consider anyone’s suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or “coin” as well). Goodby to all that. Run it all the way down. Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement, where sweet old Uncle Dave can say with impunity to a woman on the staff of LIBERATION, “The trouble with you is you’re an aggressive woman.” Goodbye to the “straight” male-dominated Left: to PL who will allow that some workers are women, but won’t see all women, (say, housewives) as workers (just like the System itself); to all the old Leftover parties who offer their “Women’s Liberation caucuses” to us as if that were not a contradiction in terms; to the individual anti-leadership leaders who hand-pick certain women to be leaders and then relate only to them, either in the male Left or in Women’s Liberation - bringing their hang-ups about power-dominance and manipulation to everything they touch. Goodbye to the WeatherVain, with the Stanley Kowalski image and theory of free sexuality but practice of sex on demand for males. “Left Out!” - not Right On - to the Weather Sisters who, and they know better - they know, reject their own radical feminism for that last desperate grab at male approval, for claiming that the machismo style and the gratuitous violence is their own style by “free choice” and for believing that this is the way for a woman to make her revolution. . . all the while, oh my sister, not meeting my eyes because WeatherMen chose Manson as their - and your - Hero. (Honest, at least. . .since BYE Manson is only the logical extreme of the normal American male’s fantasy (whether he is Dick Nixon or Mark Rudd): master of a harem, women to do all the shitwork, from raising babies and cooking and hustling to killing people on order.) Goodbye to all that shit that sets women apart from women; shit that covers the face of any Weatherwoman which is the face of any Manson Slave which is the face of Sharon Tate which is the face of Mary Jo Kopechne which is the face of Beulah Saunders which is the face of me which is the face of Pat Nixon which is the face of Pat Swinton. In the dark we are all the same - and you better believe it: we’re in the dark, baby. (Remember the old joke: Know what they call a black man with the Ph.D.? A nigger. Variation: Know what they call a Weatherwoman? A heavy cunt. Know what they call a Hip Revolutionary Woman? A groovy cunt. Know what they call a radical militant feminist? A crazy cunt. Amerika is a land of free choice - take your pick of titles. Left Out, my Sister - don’t you see? Goodbye to the illusion of strength when you run hand in hand with your oppressors; goodby to the dream that being in the leadership collective will get you anything but gonorrhea. Goodbye to RYM II, as well, and all the other RYMs - not that the sisters there didn’t pull a cool number by seizing control, but because they let the men back in after only a day or so of self-criticism on male chauvinism. (And goodbye to the inaccurate blanket use of that phrase, for that matter: male chauvinism is an attitude - male supremacy is the objective reality, the fact.) Goodbye to the Conspiracy who, when lunching with fellow sexist bastards Norman Mailer and Terry Southern in a bunny-type club in Chicago, found Judge Hoffman at the neighboring table - no surprise: in the light they are all the same. Goodbye to Hip Culture and the so-called Sexual Revolution, which has functioned toward women’s freedom as did the Reconstruction toward former slaves - reinstituted oppression by another name. Goodbye to the assumption that Hugh Romney is safe in his “cultural revolution,” safe enough to refer to “our women, who make all our clothes” without somebody not forgiving that. Goodbye to the arrogance of power indeed that lets Czar Stan Freeman of the Electric Circus sleep without fear at night, or permits Tomi Ungerer to walk unafraid in the street after executing the drawings for the Circus advertising campaign against women. Goodbye to the idea that Hugh Hefner is groovy ‘cause he lets Conspirators come to parties at the at the Mansion - goodbye to Hefner’s dream of a ripe old age. Goodbye to Tuli and the Fugs and all the boys in the front room - who always knew they hated the women they loved. Goodbye to the notion that good ol’ Abbie is any different from any other up and coming movie star (like, say Cliff Robertson) who ditches the first wife and kids, good enough for the old days but awkward once you’re Making It. Goodbye to his hypocritical double standard that reeks through all the tattered charm. Goodbye to lovely pro-Women’s-Liberation Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor “on this issue” and don’t laugh anymore at the little funnies correct that degrade and hurt them; farewell to the memory of his “Instant Pussy” aerosol-can poster, to his column for Cavalier, to his dream of a Rape-in against legislator’s wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any proper divorced Scarsdale middle-aged (38) father; goodbye forever to the notion that he is my brother, who, like Paul, buys a prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the Women’s Movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best locker-room tradition -- as proof that he’s no sexist suppressor. Let it all hang out. Let it seemed bitchy, catty, dykey, frustrated, crazy, Solanisesque, nutty, frigid, ridiculous, bitter, embarrassing, man-hating, libelous pure, unfair, envious, intuitive, low-down, stupid, petty, liberating. We are the women that men have warned us about. TO And let’s put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism -- the line that there can be such a thing as “men’s liberation groups.” Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group specifically because of a “threatening” characteristic shared by the latter group— skin color or sex or age, etc. The oppressors are indeed fucked up by being masters (racism hurts whites, sexual stereotypes are harmful to men) but those masters are not oppressed. Any master has the alternative of divesting himself of sexism or racism -- the oppressed have no alternative --for they have no power -- but to fight. In the long run, Women’s Liberation will of course free men -- but in the short run it’s going to cost men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily. Sexism is not the fault of women -- kill your fathers, not your mothers. Run it on down. Goodbye to a beautiful new ecology movement that could fight to save us all if it would stop tripping off women as earth-mother types or frontier chicks, if it would right now cede leadership to those who have not polluted the planet because that action implies power and women haven’t had any power in about 5,000 years, cede leadership to those whose brains are as tough and clear as any man’s but whose bodies are also unavoidably aware of the locked-in relationship between humans and their biosphere -- the earth, the tides, the atmosphere, the moon. Ecology is no big shtick if you’re a woman -- it’s always been there. Goodbye to the complicity inherent in the Berkeley Tribesman being part publishers of Trashman Comics; goodbye, for that matter, to the reasoning that finds whoremaster Trashman a fitting model, 6 Vol.1 No. 6 Ain't I
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GOOD So. RAT has been liberated, for this week at least. Next week? The men return to reinstate the porny photos, the sexist comic strips, the “nude-chickie” covers (along with their patronizing rhetoric about being in favor of Women’s Liberation) - if this happens, our alternatives are clear. RAT must be taken over permanently by women – or RAT must be destroyed. Why RAT? Why not EVO or even the obvious new pornzines (Mafia-distributed alongside the human pornography of prostitution)? First, they’ll get theirs - but it won’t be a takeover, which is reserved for something at least worth taking over. Nor should they be censored. They should just be helped not to exist - by any means necessary. But RAT, which has always tried to be a really radical cum life-style paper - that’s another matter. It’s the liberal co-optative masks on the face of sexist hate and fear, worn by real nice guys we all know and like, right? We have met the enemy and he is our friend. And dangerous. “What the hell, let the chicks do an issue; maybe it’ll satisfy ‘em for a while, it’s a good controversy, and it’ll maybe sell papers” - runs an unheard conversation that I’m sure took place at some point last week. And that’s what I wanted to write about - the friends, brothers, lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left. The good guys who think they know what “Women’s Lib,” as they so chummily call it, is all about - and who then proceed to degrade and destroy women by almost everything they say and do: The cover on the last issue of RAT (front and back). The token “pussy power” or “clit militancy of” articles. The snide descriptions of women staffers on the masthead. The little jokes, the personal ads, the smile, the snarl. No more, brothers. No more well-meaning ignorance, no more assuming that this thing we’re all fighting for is the same: one revolution under man, with liberty and justice for all. No more. Let’s run it on down. White males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? White males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It just could make one a bit uneasy. It seems obvious that a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most depressed: black, brown, and white women - with men relating to that the best they can. A genuine Left doesn’t consider anyone’s suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or “coin” as well). Goodby to all that. Run it all the way down. Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement, where sweet old Uncle Dave can say with impunity to a woman on the staff of LIBERATION, “The trouble with you is you’re an aggressive woman.” Goodbye to the “straight” male-dominated Left: to PL who will allow that some workers are women, but won’t see all women, (say, housewives) as workers (just like the System itself); to all the old Leftover parties who offer their “Women’s Liberation caucuses” to us as if that were not a contradiction in terms; to the individual anti-leadership leaders who hand-pick certain women to be leaders and then relate only to them, either in the male Left or in Women’s Liberation - bringing their hang-ups about power-dominance and manipulation to everything they touch. Goodbye to the WeatherVain, with the Stanley Kowalski image and theory of free sexuality but practice of sex on demand for males. “Left Out!” - not Right On - to the Weather Sisters who, and they know better - they know, reject their own radical feminism for that last desperate grab at male approval, for claiming that the machismo style and the gratuitous violence is their own style by “free choice” and for believing that this is the way for a woman to make her revolution. . . all the while, oh my sister, not meeting my eyes because WeatherMen chose Manson as their - and your - Hero. (Honest, at least. . .since BYE Manson is only the logical extreme of the normal American male’s fantasy (whether he is Dick Nixon or Mark Rudd): master of a harem, women to do all the shitwork, from raising babies and cooking and hustling to killing people on order.) Goodbye to all that shit that sets women apart from women; shit that covers the face of any Weatherwoman which is the face of any Manson Slave which is the face of Sharon Tate which is the face of Mary Jo Kopechne which is the face of Beulah Saunders which is the face of me which is the face of Pat Nixon which is the face of Pat Swinton. In the dark we are all the same - and you better believe it: we’re in the dark, baby. (Remember the old joke: Know what they call a black man with the Ph.D.? A nigger. Variation: Know what they call a Weatherwoman? A heavy cunt. Know what they call a Hip Revolutionary Woman? A groovy cunt. Know what they call a radical militant feminist? A crazy cunt. Amerika is a land of free choice - take your pick of titles. Left Out, my Sister - don’t you see? Goodbye to the illusion of strength when you run hand in hand with your oppressors; goodby to the dream that being in the leadership collective will get you anything but gonorrhea. Goodbye to RYM II, as well, and all the other RYMs - not that the sisters there didn’t pull a cool number by seizing control, but because they let the men back in after only a day or so of self-criticism on male chauvinism. (And goodbye to the inaccurate blanket use of that phrase, for that matter: male chauvinism is an attitude - male supremacy is the objective reality, the fact.) Goodbye to the Conspiracy who, when lunching with fellow sexist bastards Norman Mailer and Terry Southern in a bunny-type club in Chicago, found Judge Hoffman at the neighboring table - no surprise: in the light they are all the same. Goodbye to Hip Culture and the so-called Sexual Revolution, which has functioned toward women’s freedom as did the Reconstruction toward former slaves - reinstituted oppression by another name. Goodbye to the assumption that Hugh Romney is safe in his “cultural revolution,” safe enough to refer to “our women, who make all our clothes” without somebody not forgiving that. Goodbye to the arrogance of power indeed that lets Czar Stan Freeman of the Electric Circus sleep without fear at night, or permits Tomi Ungerer to walk unafraid in the street after executing the drawings for the Circus advertising campaign against women. Goodbye to the idea that Hugh Hefner is groovy ‘cause he lets Conspirators come to parties at the at the Mansion - goodbye to Hefner’s dream of a ripe old age. Goodbye to Tuli and the Fugs and all the boys in the front room - who always knew they hated the women they loved. Goodbye to the notion that good ol’ Abbie is any different from any other up and coming movie star (like, say Cliff Robertson) who ditches the first wife and kids, good enough for the old days but awkward once you’re Making It. Goodbye to his hypocritical double standard that reeks through all the tattered charm. Goodbye to lovely pro-Women’s-Liberation Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor “on this issue” and don’t laugh anymore at the little funnies correct that degrade and hurt them; farewell to the memory of his “Instant Pussy” aerosol-can poster, to his column for Cavalier, to his dream of a Rape-in against legislator’s wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any proper divorced Scarsdale middle-aged (38) father; goodbye forever to the notion that he is my brother, who, like Paul, buys a prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the Women’s Movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best locker-room tradition -- as proof that he’s no sexist suppressor. Let it all hang out. Let it seemed bitchy, catty, dykey, frustrated, crazy, Solanisesque, nutty, frigid, ridiculous, bitter, embarrassing, man-hating, libelous pure, unfair, envious, intuitive, low-down, stupid, petty, liberating. We are the women that men have warned us about. TO And let’s put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism -- the line that there can be such a thing as “men’s liberation groups.” Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group specifically because of a “threatening” characteristic shared by the latter group— skin color or sex or age, etc. The oppressors are indeed fucked up by being masters (racism hurts whites, sexual stereotypes are harmful to men) but those masters are not oppressed. Any master has the alternative of divesting himself of sexism or racism -- the oppressed have no alternative --for they have no power -- but to fight. In the long run, Women’s Liberation will of course free men -- but in the short run it’s going to cost men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily. Sexism is not the fault of women -- kill your fathers, not your mothers. Run it on down. Goodbye to a beautiful new ecology movement that could fight to save us all if it would stop tripping off women as earth-mother types or frontier chicks, if it would right now cede leadership to those who have not polluted the planet because that action implies power and women haven’t had any power in about 5,000 years, cede leadership to those whose brains are as tough and clear as any man’s but whose bodies are also unavoidably aware of the locked-in relationship between humans and their biosphere -- the earth, the tides, the atmosphere, the moon. Ecology is no big shtick if you’re a woman -- it’s always been there. Goodbye to the complicity inherent in the Berkeley Tribesman being part publishers of Trashman Comics; goodbye, for that matter, to the reasoning that finds whoremaster Trashman a fitting model, 6 Vol.1 No. 6 Ain't I
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