B.tch Book Club

Over the years, the term “feminism” has ebbed in and out of popularity. I remember an interview with Lady Gaga about a decadeish ago, where when asked if she was a feminist, she replied, “no, I’m a humanist.” I think that sentiment comes from a misunderstanding of what feminism represents. Feminism is the response to the patriarchy, therefore, feminism is anti-patriarchy, not anti-men. So, I’m excited to dive into bell hook’s The Will to Change, where she talks about just that: the patriarchy’s negative impact on men, and what we can do about it.

I very much encourage any men or masc peoples to show up to this meeting, because I would love to hear your feedback on this book.

“Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men.

Everyone needs to love and be loved—including men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways in which patriarchal culture keeps them from understanding themselves. In The Will to Change, bell hooks provides a compassionate guide for men of all ages and identities to understand how to be in touch with their feelings, and how to express versus repress the emotions that are a fundamental part of who we are.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. The Will to Change “creates space for men to acknowledge their traumas and heal—not only for their sake, but for the sake of everyone in their lives”
— Buzzfeed

“It’s not true that men are unwilling to change. It’s true that many men are afraid to change. It’s true that masses of men haven’t even begun to look at the ways that patriarchy keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. To know love, men must be able to let go of the will to dominate. They must be able to choose life over death. They must be willing to change.”

“The truth we do not tell is that men are longing for love.”

“Many women cannot hear male pain about love because it sounds like an indictment of female failure. Since sexist norms have taught us that loving is our task whether in our role as mothers or lovers or friends, if men say they aren’t loved, then we’re at fault; we are to blame.”
— bell hooks

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When I was a wee lass I had a crush on a tall, dark, and handsome stranger with a shrunken eye and a love for Depeche Mode. He was much older and mysterious and he told me to read The Left Hand of Darkness, so I did, and I wrote him a tiny little book report of my findings that I sent to him via Facebook. And then he said, "Yeah, that about sums it up."😭 So... join me as I revisit this little gem, and let's imagine a world where winter never ends, gender is mutable, and duality is a double-edged sword!

“A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.”
— Goodreads

“One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”

"I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing.”

"Fear's very useful. Like darkness; like shadows. It's queer that daylight's not enough. We need the shadows, in order to walk."
— Ursula K. Le Guin

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In the 2007 film Teeth, a medical doctor inserts his digits into the protagonist's vagina only to have his fingers bitten off. Gripping his bleeding hand, he screams, “Vagina Dentata!! It does exist!” Well, it seems that Jessa Crispin, the author of Why I Am Not a Feminist thinks that, unlike the vagina in Teeth, feminism has lost its bite. Well, after the gentle gender analysis of The Left Hand of Darkness and the cooperative vibe of The Will to Change I decided to take us into increasingly more radical territory, just in time for those cozy talks over the holiday dinner table.

“Are you a feminist? Do you believe women are human beings and that they deserve to be treated as such? That women deserve all the same rights and liberties bestowed upon men? If so, then you are a feminist . . . or so the feminists keep insisting. But somewhere along the way, the movement for female liberation sacrificed meaning for acceptance, and left us with a banal, polite, ineffectual pose that barely challenges the status quo. In this bracing, fiercely intelligent manifesto, Jessa Crispin demands more.

Why I Am Not A Feminist is a radical, fearless call for revolution. It accuses the feminist movement of obliviousness, irrelevance, and cowardice—and demands nothing less than the total dismantling of a system of oppression.”
— Penguin Random House

“Radical change is scary. It’s terrifying, actually. And the feminism I support is a full-on revolution. Where women are not simply allowed to participate in the world as it already exists—an inherently corrupt world, designed by a patriarchy to subjugate and control and destroy all challengers—but are actively able to re-shapeit. Where women do not simply knock on the doors of churches, of governments, of capitalist marketplaces and politely ask for admittance, but create their own religious systems, governments, and economies. My feminism is not one of incremental change, revealed in the end to be The Same As Ever, But More So. It is a cleansing fire.”
— Jessa Crispin

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Tis the season to violently overthrow not just the patriarchy, but the entire male sex, no?

I said I was going radical for the holidays, and Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto delivers. Referring to men as “walking abortions,” Solanas is not afraid to throw acid at our feelings. It’s a short, 44-page, spit-in-your-face, punch-you-in-the-junk read and I can’t wait! Needless to say, this may bristle the hairs for some of you, but whether we see it as just revenge sci-fi porn or a seminal anarcho-feminist treatise for our ever-gelatinous capitalist patriarchal society, it’ll definitely give us something to talk about!

“Outrageous and violent, SCUM Manifesto was widely lambasted when it first appeared in 1968. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published the book just before she became a notorious household name and was confined to a mental institution. But for all its vitriol, it is impossible to dismiss as the mere rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has proved prescient, not only as a radical feminist analysis light years ahead of its time—predicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against underrepresentation in the arts—but also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.”
— Verso books

“Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.”

“The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they'd find fulfilling if they were female.”

“Sex is the refuge of the mindless. And the more
mindless the woman, the more deeply embedded in the male “culture”, in short, the nicer she is, the more sexual she is.”

“No genuine social revolution can be accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the male on the bottom wants is to be the male on top.”
— Valerie Solanas

I don't think SCUM Manifesto is old enough to be considered public domain, but it seems to me like Solanas would want it to be freely distributed, no?

So, here it is in photocopied book form:
https://archive.org/details/sparrowsnest-2426/mode/2up

And pdf:
https://editions-ismael.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/1968-Valerie-Solanas-S.C.U.M.-Manifesto.pdf

And just free floating on the web:
https://www.khoury.northeastern.edu/home/shivers/rants/scum.html

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