When my Blogging activities were tied to the RSA, I would have avoided posting something like this from my readings. Not so much so now, I guess.
This bothers me because it has been true for me in the past, the recent past.
John Soltenberg on "What Men of Conscience Will Be Doing in the Next Decade"
from Refusing to Be a Man
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will do very little or nothing.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will prefer to discuss their feelings.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will do only that which makes them feel better about themselves. If something does not make them feel better about themselves, they will be unlikely to do it. Discussing their feelings will make them feel better about themselves.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience, if they notice they are doing nothing, will want to spend hours and hours justifying their inertia. They are waiting for women’s leadership, they may say. They don’t want to do anything rash; they want it all spelled out for them exactly, step-by-step. And they have not yet received precise instructions from the central feminist organizing committee. All women have to do is ask, they may say. All women have to do is hold their hand, is what they mean.
This bothers me because it has been true for me in the past, the recent past.
John Soltenberg on "What Men of Conscience Will Be Doing in the Next Decade"
from Refusing to Be a Man
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will do very little or nothing.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will prefer to discuss their feelings.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will do only that which makes them feel better about themselves. If something does not make them feel better about themselves, they will be unlikely to do it. Discussing their feelings will make them feel better about themselves.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience, if they notice they are doing nothing, will want to spend hours and hours justifying their inertia. They are waiting for women’s leadership, they may say. They don’t want to do anything rash; they want it all spelled out for them exactly, step-by-step. And they have not yet received precise instructions from the central feminist organizing committee. All women have to do is ask, they may say. All women have to do is hold their hand, is what they mean.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will spend more time shopping for tofu than they spend reading the feminist press.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will turn out for one feminist demonstration every twelve months. They will raise their voices in shout. They will shout louder, in fact, than all the women combined. They will even get into a scuffle with some other men, any other men, hostile bystanders, the police: They will make a noble scene; they will stage a cockfight. Then they will go home and try to get in touch with their feelings for another year.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will ally themselves publicly with a woman of feminist credentials. They may be friends or lovers, heterosexual or homosexual, married or single, living together or apart—it doesn’t matter; what matters is their public alliance. She will provide him with credentials of his own: a plastic-laminated wallet card that says “I have been approved by a feminist woman” and it will have on it her good name. He will flash the card when it suits him. He will keep it in his pocket when he buys pornography. When he visits her home he will leave a mess.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience, when their wife says good-bye, when their live-in maid says clean your own piss around the toilet, when their politically astute feminist comradein-arms says “I no longer trust you” and stops wanting to hang out together—when their personal conduit to feminist consciousness leaves them—many men of conscience will become less and less like men of conscience and more and more like ordinary men. They will turn their attention to political issues that don’t blatantly remind them of the fact that men like themselves oppress women like her. Nuclear energy. Wars in foreign lands. Food coops. Rent strikes. Important issues, not unimportant issues. It’s just that they’re better than alcohol or drugs when your heart is broken and you want it to harden.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will turn out for one feminist demonstration every twelve months. They will raise their voices in shout. They will shout louder, in fact, than all the women combined. They will even get into a scuffle with some other men, any other men, hostile bystanders, the police: They will make a noble scene; they will stage a cockfight. Then they will go home and try to get in touch with their feelings for another year.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience will ally themselves publicly with a woman of feminist credentials. They may be friends or lovers, heterosexual or homosexual, married or single, living together or apart—it doesn’t matter; what matters is their public alliance. She will provide him with credentials of his own: a plastic-laminated wallet card that says “I have been approved by a feminist woman” and it will have on it her good name. He will flash the card when it suits him. He will keep it in his pocket when he buys pornography. When he visits her home he will leave a mess.
PREDICTION: Many men of conscience, when their wife says good-bye, when their live-in maid says clean your own piss around the toilet, when their politically astute feminist comradein-arms says “I no longer trust you” and stops wanting to hang out together—when their personal conduit to feminist consciousness leaves them—many men of conscience will become less and less like men of conscience and more and more like ordinary men. They will turn their attention to political issues that don’t blatantly remind them of the fact that men like themselves oppress women like her. Nuclear energy. Wars in foreign lands. Food coops. Rent strikes. Important issues, not unimportant issues. It’s just that they’re better than alcohol or drugs when your heart is broken and you want it to harden.
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