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Men Explain Things to Me

Book by Rebecca Solnit · 19 quotes · Feminism, Feminizm, Kultura Gwałtu

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Men Explain Things to Me Quotes

“Some women get erased a little at a time, some all at once. Some reappear. Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear. She struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her, or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the rights of man, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.”

“How can I tell a story we already know too well? Her name was Africa. His was France. He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her, and even decades after it was supposed to have ended, still acted with a high hand in resolving her affairs in places like Côte d'Ivoire, a name she had been given because of her export products, not her own identity. Her name was Asia. His was Europe. Her name was silence. His was power. Her name was poverty. His was wealth. Her name was Her, but what was hers? His name was His, and he presumed everything was his, including her, and he thought be could take her without asking and without consequences. It was a very old story, though its outcome had been changing a little in recent decades. And this time around the consequences are shaking a lot of foundations, all of which clearly needed shaking. Who would ever write a fable as obvious, as heavy-handed as the story we've been given? ... His name was privilege, but hers was possibility. His was the same old story, but hers was a new one about the possibility of changing a story that remains unfinished, that includes all of us, that matters so much, that we will watch but also make and tell in the weeks, months, years, decades to come.”

“The summer before, an estranged husband violated his wife’s restraining order against him, shooting her—and killing or wounding six other women—at her workplace in suburban Milwaukee, but since there were only four corpses the crime was largely overlooked in the media in a year with so many more spectacular mass murders in this country (and we still haven’t really talked about the fact that, of sixty-two mass shootings in the United States in three decades, only one was by a woman, because when you say lone gunman, everyone talks about loners and guns but not about men—and by the way, nearly two-thirds of all women killed by guns are killed by their partner or ex-partner).”

“Recently, a lot of Americans have swapped the awkward phrase 'same-sex marriage' for the term 'marriage equality'. This phrase is ordinarily implied to mean that same-sex couples will have the rights different-sexed couples do. But it could also mean that marriage is between equals. That's not what traditional marriage was. Throughout much of history in the west, the laws defining marriage made the husband essentially an owner and the wife a possession. Or the man a boss and the woman a slave.”

“„Kultura‍ gwałtu oznacza, że mamy do czynienia z otoczeniem, w którym gwałt jest zjawiskiem powszechnym, a media i kultura popularna normalizują i usprawiedliwiają przemoc seksualną wobec kobiet. Podtrzymuje kulturę gwałtu używanie mizoginicznego języka, uprzedmiotawianie ciał kobiet, estetyzowanie przemocy seksualnej i co za tym idzie, tworzenie społeczeństwa, które nie szanuje prawa i bezpieczeństwa kobiet. Większość kobiet i dziewcząt narzuca sobie najróżniejsze ograniczenia dlatego, że gwałty stanowią realne zagrożenie. Większość kobiet i dziewcząt żyje w strachu przed gwałtem. Mężczyźni na ogół nie. W taki sposób gwałt służy jako potężne narzędzie, za pomocą którego cała populacja kobiet pozostaje podporządkowana całej populacji mężczyzn, nawet jeśli nie wszyscy mężczyźni gwałcą i nie wszystkie kobiety padają ofiarą gwałtu”.”

“Laurie‍ Penny, jedna z ważnych współczesnych feministycznych myślicielek, pisze: „Kiedy‍ rozeszła się wieść o morderstwie, kiedy cały cyfrowy świat zaczął je omawiać i zastanawiać się nad jego znaczeniem, byłam bliska napisania do mojego wydawcy mejla z prośbą o kilka dni wolnego, ponieważ kilka szczególnie brutalnych pogróżek, zwłaszcza tych dotyczących gwałtu, sprawiło, że byłam roztrzęsiona i potrzebowałam czasu, żeby się pozbierać. Jednak zamiast dać sobie ten czas, piszę niniejszy post – piszę go, pogrążona w żałobie i pełna gniewu nie tylko z powodu masakry w Isla Vista, ale także z powodu tego, co tracimy wszędzie, dlatego że język i ideologia nowej mizoginii wciąż traktowane są jako coś, co można wybaczyć. (…) Mdli mnie, kiedy za każdym razem, kiedy próbuję mówić o ofiarach i o tych, które przetrwały przemoc, każe mi się współczuć sprawcom”.”

“Finding ways to appreciate advances without embracing complacency is a delicate task. It involves being hopeful and motivated and keeping eyes on the prize ahead. Saying that everything is fine or that it will never get any better are ways of going nowhere or of making it impossible to go anywhere. Either approach implies that there is no road out or that, if there is, you don’t need to or can’t go down it. You can. We have.”