Part 2: The Secret of the Sacred Bitch

Epilogue

So, why do I scare you so much? I do wonder!

Is it the divinity in me? Something that I cannot help being.

Was there no other possible way of getting even other than dragging me in the mud, dumping me into the whirlpools of shame, cutting off my throat, burning me, and scattering my remains in hell? Can't you see, you fool, that you're becoming my slave once more? You sure are, for you're dedicating your life to demonizing me, you idiot! And it's not doing you any good. It's not doing anybody any good. Look around you, the whole life lies in ruins.. wounded beyond healing. Just because of the stupidity of a bunch of psychotic idiots who started this machinery in motion.. your glorious grandfathers! Yeah, smile, sucker! You've inherited every bit of their chauvinism, bigotry and greed.

Smile idiot!

Flashback

At the age of 9, I went on a field trip with my class to the Pharaonic Village in Giza. It is a living museum, a miniature of how life used to be like in Ancient Egypt. What a charming trip it was! We sailed down canals which go through the whole village, passing by replicas of tombs, temples, houses.. watching actors planting, making paper out of papyrus; women weaving and making perfumes. It all left me mesmerized. And that same year I would ask Santa to bring me a time machine! Imagine a kid experiencing this type of nostalgia. Life sucked back then, but definitely it wasn't anything like how it sucks right now.

*Sighs* OK, so we were on this boat, with a nice guide from the Village who told us all the stories behind what we were seeing. We stopped by many monuments of Pharaohs, gods and goddesses. Of all of them, I somehow got very attracted to the statue of the warrior goddess Sekhmet.

Back then I was still being introduced to the world of mythology. I had not known about the existence of similar goddesses in other cultures and found it so interesting that Pharaohs fought battles behind this female goddess. Why did the men choose a female to lead them in warship? It seemed a mystery to me. Why a lioness, not a lion? Certainly a lioness never comes to mind when words like bravery, heroism, fight, battle, glory or the likes are mentioned.. so I could not really understand it. I thought like Pharaohs too must have had their eccentricities.. lol.

So, we continued our trip, took photos and all. Then we went to the gift shop to collect some souvenirs . Mind you, at that time the Village was only a fraction of what it has become today. It has immensely expanded ever since. Yet, for us, what we'd seen was too much already. We'd never seen history come to life in such a way.

My friends started picking their favorite items. I had little money with me, and thought I'd better spend it wisely. It is no surprise that the only thing I thought to be worthy of purchase was the object which had inflamed my curiosity.. I bought a postcard with the image of Sekhmet.

On the bus, while on our way back to the school, I kept staring at her, almost talking to her and begging her to explain it to me. “So what is your story lady?” How have you managed to become the bravest of the brave; the invincible bloodthirsty warrior that you are?

Forward

It is amazing how my feelings towards this lady remained unchangeable when many years later I saw her dignified statues in the British Museum. I actually spent a lot of time by her side there, telling her memories of the good old days. I apparently still admire her, although I am a person who utterly denounces all sorts of violence. To me, though, she stood for much better things.

Sekhmet means 'all powerful' or 'the one who is powerful'. This goddess also received many other titles when her religion flourished, all of them depicting how mighty she was. She's been called the Mistress of Dread, the Lady of Slaughter, Lady of Flames, Scarlet Lady (related to blood), the One Before Whom Evil Trembled, and The Avenger of the Wronged. She was also thought to be the reason behind diseases, and thus the only one who has their cures. So, her powers and knowledge were sought after by physicians too.. not only warriors. And as she brought war, she also brought peace.

Now, you see how she gathered polar elements of cruelty and mercy, disease and healing, conflict and reconciliation... etc. Her rage was enough to evoke ultimate destruction. She had to be calmed down, and the only way to soothe her was through music! Music would keep her happy and relaxed.

I absolutely fell in love with this lady.. the lioness with a taste for music; the one who healed the sick and wounded coz she felt responsible for them. Other warrior goddesses wouldn't give a damn about the sufferings of those affected by their wrath. Maybe they deserved to be viewed as bitches in a way.. but certainly not the lioness! It seemed so fitting, though, that men would work around their fear of her by dragging her image into the lowest abyss of shame. Yeah, the same old scenario! Won't you try for once being more creative, dudes?? Just for change?

The 'Labua' Complex

OK.. For those of you who don't know, in Arabic, the worst name to be given to a female is that of 'lioness'.. that is, if a woman is said to be a 'labua' (which is the Arabic word for 'lioness',) it means she is the most disdained being to walk the face of earth.

When I first learned about the horrible implications of this “insult” I found it hard to understand what the metaphor was all about. The common explanation you'd receive was that a lioness sleeps around.. she ain't faithful to one sexual partner! This is just so stupid, isn't it?.. For one, what is the difference between a lioness and any other female – or male – animal in this respect?? Hello!! Anybody seen a giraffe who spends her life with one sex partner?? or even a fish??? WTF is this about?

Ancient Egyptians actually made sense when they chose to fight under the image of the lioness. People used some logic back then, and could clearly see that the lioness was in fact the best hunter in the animal kingdom. So, while Mr. lazy lion lies there sleeping most of his days, she was the one doing everything, including teaching her cubs how to hunt. A lion actually wins his fights by the mere shape and size of his mane!! (How adequate!) But rarely engages in a real fight, or displays actual courage. He depends on his intimidating appearance and counts on the females of the tribe to feed him. Plus, he's not any different from his selfish human counterparts, for whenever he finds an easy prey that does not require much effort, and thus decides to hunt once in a while, he never shares his meal!!

That's exactly why today the lion became the icon of bravery and heroism! You see? Don't you just love our patriarchal societies? I mean, the guys hardly make any effort in identifying with the exact fitting types!.. Not forgetting, of course, to demonize their former goddesses who scared the sh*t out of them.

Macho Macho!

To be continued..

Do I Scare the SH*T Out of You?

This should have been a post for Halloween. Sorry I missed it. Been dealing with my own ghosts and stuff. But, no matter where I turn, I can't help but notice the amount of horror that a free , intellectual woman is greeted with in our society. Sometimes, it's too hilarious.. However, other times the defense mechanism which is automatically triggered at such a moment causes its beholder to turn offensive. Now, this is indeed pathetic, yet unacceptable.. and should not be tolerated.

Alright, check this out. Independent women in our society are constantly under attack. It's fine if you have a job, but it is not fine at all if you've really got career ambitions and professional goals. It's not fine at all if you're seeking financial security. It's not fine at all if you're planning to hold a high position one day. It's not fine at all to seek to be really competent and perfect your work. Why? Because you're a woman! For God's sake, you're created to be dependent! You're the pet of our human world! What the hell are you thinking? Career? Ambitions? Money? You wanna make your own money? that is not inherited or bestowed upon you by a generous husband? How can you call yourself a woman?

Women here don't get jobs to work or become productive. They have jobs so that society can indulge in the lie that women are enjoying their full rights. The majority of women have jobs that are not mentally challenging. Their employers always keep in mind that they won't stay long enough to hold any managerial position. Some workplaces cut the crap and make it clear they are employing men only. They don't even care what "a few" would think about that. They are putting the blame on women for being so unreliable.

If, however, they come across a woman who has got clear goals, who is career oriented, and has got what it takes to really succeed.. the applause doesn't last for long.

Somehow a woman cannot be separated from her personal life. She carries it with her everywhere.. you name it.. the office, the street, the club, the hair salon, the mall.. anywhere on earth. It's always the same old story.. Are you single? Why? Don't you intend to get married? What? You want a post-graduate degree? What for? You have career ambitions? You are I.N.D.E.P.E.N.D.E.N.T??!! What does that mean?

Let's say she gets married.. All expectations then revolve somewhere around her regaining her sanity and forgetting all about this independence crap. You're a wife and a mother, and you're not allowed to ask questions about the husband/father thing. We're not kidding here. You're a WOMAN.. remember?

Yeah, hell I do. I do remember when I took driving lessons. Everybody was asking my father (not even me) why he was allowing such a thing. "Do you really intend to let her have her own car?" they would ask. And when I traveled alone for the first time, it was like "Wow! How could she live on her own?" No rationale whatsoever. They expect you to be responsible for a whole family, yet they can't trust that you can take care of yourself!! And if you ask simple logical questions, like how do you expect me to be naive, weak, ignorant, vulnerable and yet at the same time become a super wife and mom? you get anything except what could be classified under "answer".

Men have always feared women. It is part of who they are. There is a whole culture built on this ancient instinctive fear.. it is manifested in myths, legend, fairy tales, traditional practices, religions, literature, language, art.. all possible forms. A very good read on this issue is Wolfgang Lederer's Fear of Women, published in 1968. It is a pity that libraries all over the world are so lacking when it comes to this subject.

In this book, the author argues that women have always been mysterious. Their body functions perform miracles that were beyond men's abilities to understand. The fact that the continuity of the whole human race lay in the wombs of women was indeed scary. Giving birth, a human coming out of another human, this oneness that splits into two.. that was also scary. The male's exterior genitals made him so vulnerable and insecure. While women have their genitals and all their 'magical powers' intact. They are tough in handling pain, yet they are smooth, delicate and charming. That's why a woman was often associated with the serpent, smooth yet deadly.

I'll just quote a few lines here. Lederer says:

"We have forgotten, or tried to forget, how much we are in awe of woman's biological functions, her menstruating and her child-bearing, and how much we abhor the smelly fluids of her organicity, the many secret folds and wrinkles of her inevitable decay. We are trying to deny her threat to our manhood, her serpent's tongue and the sharp teeth in her two bloody mouths. We refuse to believe in the lure of her depths, and the infinite demandingness of her void. We belittle her sexual challenge and deride, uneasily, her fighting strength..."

Another interesting read, which also draws on the serpent imagery, is Youssef Zeidan's novel Shadow of the Serpent (Zil al-Af’a). In a series of letters from an anthropologist to her adult daughter, the author unravels many episodes of human history and the factors which shaped this complex relationship between the sexes. Fear, is man's most instinctive and deeply hidden emotion towards women.. it is indeed which kept this huge snowball rolling. And, through those letters, the daughter is learning how she, as a female, has fallen from grace.

It seems that whoever refuses to become a fallen queen.. whoever attempts to regain her throne.. rekindles this dormant volcano. It seems the traditional wisdom goes along those lines: women cannot be contained.. unless enslaved, they turn into goddesses.

To be continued....

Notes on a Scandal

This post has got nothing to do with the movie holding the same name. It just popped into my head while writing about what our Egyptian society would classify as a scandal.

A few weeks ago a horrible murder took place in the 6th of October city, precisely in one of the new luxurious compounds which were initially built on the outskirts of Cairo before the 6th of October turned from being a mere district into a governorate . Two female students, Heba (daughter of the famous singer, Laila Ghofran) and her friend Nadine ( daughter of an Egyptian engineer who works and lives in Saudi Arabia) were brutally stabbed to death inside Nadine's family apartment.

It is generally expected that the Arab media would prove to be more brutal than the murderer himself in its coverage of such cases. The newspapers, which were first to announce the news, have extremely increased the dosage this time, though.. seeking to exploit the fact that one of the victims is the daughter to a celeb. Mind you, I'm not talking about some tabloid papers.. No! These are daily newspapers that Egyptians read every morning to check local and world news and daily columns written by the top writers in Egypt. Thus, they are considered to be a trusted source of information, and usually people take what they say for granted. Yet, this time, we found journalists competing hysterically in spicing up the details related to the murder, with a special focus on the moral conduct of the two girls (the victims). They spread rumors in the form of news from their trusted sources, and made headlines out of imaginary crap, building upon a social stereotype which basically condemns a girl living alone, even if she is a nun! Those journalists kept making their wildest guesses and casting their dices on the best they could get out of this story, which instantly became a huge buzz in Egypt.

It breaks my heart to go through the details, but I will just mention some examples to elaborate on how our media has got a very strong hand in misleading public opinion, of course without being bound by any ethical codes or rules or laws to organize this chaos. In Egypt, an editor-in-chief gets in trouble if he published fabricated info concerning our president's health.. but it is fine if his paper is totally fabricated from cover to cover. Just don't come near the presidency. It is true the press enjoys great freedom.. You can accuse anybody of anything you wish, without even having to prove it. We have a huge problem with the definition of "freedom" in this country, and usually what we consider to be freedom is nothing but chaos and meanness. Just look at our streets for God's sake! Isn't this the land of absolute freedom??

Anyway, back to Heba and Nadine. And I'd like to apologize in advance for mentioning the following rumors, which, I repeat, were written as facts directly delivered from security sources, friends, and neighbors to the victims.

Newspapers said that Heba and Nadine were drug addicts, who were notorious for their multiple relationships with guys and crazy partying in the apartment where they were both killed. It was said that during those parties the girls would invite friends from both sexes, serve drugs and alcohols, and dance till the early hours of morning. Journalists were specifically keen on suggesting the idea of "free sexual relationships" which took place during those parties, with special focus on the two victims.. not forgetting to mention the names of their boyfriends, who, according to colleagues and neighbors (the papers said,) were used to spending hours with the girls in the privacy of this villa!! Yeah, all of a sudden the apartment turned into a villa.

As to how the girls were stabbed and the possible reason behind the crime (which journalists claimed was according to police investigations), it was said that revenge was a primary suspect, because both girls were stabbed several times, Nadine's throat and tongue were cut, and it was said that a post-mortem examination revealed the presence of explosives inside her womb!! You may wonder why this sadism was mainly directed towards Nadine, although she ain't the famous one.. Well, I have got no idea.. But I guess it is because the apartment was hers, and she was the one who lived alone.. which is such a shame according to our local customs and traditions. Basically, people assume that a girl living alone would normally indulge in all the worst kinds of behavior, including sex, of course - being the taboo of all taboos here - and in this case, one sex partner won't be enough, she has to have several.. while drinking and doing drugs are just to complete the stereotypical image.

It was said that this "revenge" was either carried out by one of the girls' boyfriends, out of jealousy, or by a drug dealer!! And details just kept getting more disgusting, always ending by talking about Nadine's father who lives in Saudi Arabia without knowing anything about his daughter, while sending her a monthly allowance of 11,000 EGP (yeah, coz 10,000 won't be a convincing figure, the extra 1000 would make it sound more precise and thus causing people to believe all the other details) and that she had recently lent her boyfriend 40,000 EGP to be able to buy a new car!.. Oh la la!

Why turn a simple apartment into a villa? and what have those amounts of money got to do with the murder case? and why is it considered to be such a shame? Well, again.. I don't have the answers.. but probably because a society where the majority suffers from poverty will definitely feel curious about how the girls who belong to the high society of Cairo live. Thus, those kinds of details are guaranteed to verify the stereotypical image that those people have become familiar with through the Egyptian TV series, soaps and films, which always show the rich family as leading a life full of corruption and vice.

So, to make a long story short.. It wasn't long before the truth came out (and this drove people even more crazy because they expected this real-life crime series to last longer). The facts were as follows:
1- Heba was officially married to the guy they named once as her boyfriend and later as her fiancé. She called him after the murderer ran away and that's how journalists got his name.
2-Nadine's autopsy report proved that she was a virgin, her so-called boyfriend was a colleague she loved, has proposed to her family and was asked to wait until she completes her education.
3-The murderer was found to be a 19 year old blacksmith who came to rob the house, thinking that both girls were already asleep. But, Heba, who was still awake, saw him and started screaming. He was already shaking, so he kept stabbing her hysterically to make her shut up. Her screams caused Nadine, who was sleeping in her room to wake up. Then during a struggle, Nadine injured the guy's hand with the knife he held, running to the kitchen to grab a knife.. he then ran after her stabbing her repeatedly in the back, and when she fell, he thought she died, but she held on to his feet.. then he decided to cut her throat to finish her.

Now it's questions time.. Why would our society insist on making a scandal out of this crime? A scandal involving the victims!.. while the murderer in almost all similar cases has always had some kind of a ready-made scenario on his side.. from being a hurt lover, driven to commit the crime out of jealousy, to the young victim of poverty, to even suggesting a conspiracy theory in which the Egyptian police resorted to dragging an innocent guy to present him to the public as the murderer!.. Why?.. To spoil the fun of the masses, maybe!

Anyway, I've written about this terrible crime before, in Arabic, presenting a kind of humble reading of what might be the hidden motives behind the industry of social scandals in Egypt.. Why a female victim of murder is automatically shifted to become the subject of a scandal, and may indeed be considered a criminal herself in a different context, in which a very strange definition of "honor" usually appears.. much related to the idea of "honor killings." In this context, the assumed violation of social customs and traditions is in fact viewed by the majority of people to be a very serious crime.. much more serious than murder.. to such a degree which makes the act of murder itself a righteous act or even "the sole cure" in such a case.


A female exercising free will over her body is committing the most horrible crime. Anything else can be forgiven. Anything else can be dealt with. Any other crime has got a fitting punishment, and in such a case, the criminal can indeed be forgiven after undergoing this punishment.. even if it was execution.. he can still have a good name, and his family won't live with the burden of shame hanging over its head for a lifetime. Anything and everything can be forgiven, except a female out of control. This is the scariest notion.. It is a social obsession.. It is the greatest fear of every man in our society. Families are constantly under the stress of this ever present nightmare. And it just keeps getting worse and worse as their daughters grow up.

I often get criticized when I tell my female friends that I pity Egyptian men, and that I can, on a certain level, sympathize with them. I might be asking for too much if I expect them to accept this coming from me. Yet, it won't be fair if even someone who has got the insight to realize such strong influences shaping men in our society, ever since their early childhood, can not bring herself to understand their motivations and inner struggles. Yes, we have all the right to be frustrated and to consider our men to be the worst ever at times, but we must not forget that they just can't help it.

Imagine this.. A little boy being taught from his early childhood not to mix with girls, being urged to play the role of a bodyguard for his sister/s, and even his own mother in some cases. He is bullied at school by merely naming his sister or his mother (not to mention the dirty language dictionary which mainly focuses on using the mother as the source of shame. For example, mother f***er and others). This boy then grows up to see women as a source of shame and scandal.. his own shame and his own scandal. His next mission is to go through puberty and teenage years, suffering from feelings of internalized shame, because at this age he fantasizes about females a lot, yet he cannot understand his mixed feelings towards them.. a love/hate sort of relationship. Add to that the feeling of guilt that a teenager always carries like a bulk of chains weighing down his/her soul, merely because they are normal human beings who have got a reproductive system!

Then, this young man goes through the biggest challenge off all, a sort of "to be or not to be" kind of dilemma. He is brought up to believe that his manhood lies between his thighs.. And now he became old enough to put this to the test. So, what will it be? Man or Not Man?

There are 2 ways to find out: Marriage or else.. I won't go through the second option.. it needs a separate post. Let's say he chooses marriage. Then again he faces another challenge.. not the one you have in minds.. no.. finding "the one" is not really a big deal when choosing an Egyptian wife.. The challenge here is not finding real love, it is finding the absolute virgin.

In a society like ours, a mere virgin just isn't good enough.. every man's quest while mating is to find the absolute virgin. Well, I'd better clarify what that means.

An AV is a never-been-touched, never-been-in-love, never-had-a-relationship, kind of girl. This is different from the simple "virgin".. Coz it is taken for granted that the girl must be a virgin in the biological sense! She has to bleed on her wedding night. That is out of question. The absolute virgin goes beyond her hymn.. Her husband has to be the first man in her life. It is even better if she told him he was her prince charming.. and she would really do the perfect job if she was able to convince him that his ghost used to visit her in her dreams.. a very common proto-image inspired by some Egyptian movie classics.


Let's say our guy (thinks he has) succeeded in his mission, and he was able to find his half human, half angel AV. Is the nightmare finally over? Hehehe.. you wish!

To be continued...

The Scum Manifesto

An interesting book with a very interesting message. If you are a man who is generally angry at feminists, this would at least give you a good reason to be mad. But still, the message of the book remains intriguing.

The book is entitled The S.C.U.M Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men). It is written by Valerie Solanas, one of the most controversial and notorious women in American feminist history. She actually became famous after attempting to murder three men in 1968. She actually turned herself in to the police on the same day to make a statement about why she shot those men. She received a sentence of three years, and became a martyr by the time of her release. But she came out only to go on stalking those who escaped death on the day she shot them. She then spent the rest of her life in mental hospitals.

Solanas wrote The SCUM Manifesto on the same year she was charged with attempted murder. By then, she had been a playwright. Her first play, was to be produced by one of the men she wanted to kill. But apparently he never returned her script and only gave her a small role in one of his films as compensation. Later on, when she demanded that he returns the script or pay her for it, he claimed that he lost it and refused to give her any money for it. Solanas apparently did not need the money, because she used to self-published her works at the time. She was protecting her copyrights it seems, but her own way.. How dare he steal her script! One thing you must keep in mind buddy: DON'T MESS WITH AN ANGRY WOMAN.

Anyway.. Solanas' Manifesto was meant to be an attack on the patriarchal culture, promoting the idea of a violent revolution to establish an all-female society. What is most outstanding about the book is that in spite of its extremism and furious style, and aside from the violent message it conveys, it actually makes lots of sense when dealing with social analysis and scientific facts. (It gets most interesting when she describes her theory that a male is actually an incomplete female, which is the total opposite of the Freudian theory.) You wouldn't expect this to be the work of a mad woman! But everybody wanted to believe that this woman was mad.. This was the sixties, don't forget.

Below I shall list some of my favorite quotes from The SCUM Manifesto, and I will also provide a link where you can read the book in full text. Yeah.. That's a free bonus! Fanta's gift for Valentine. Enjoy :)

"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.

It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.

The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming. He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings -- hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt -- and moreover, he is aware of what he is and what he isn't."

"Being an incomplete female, the male spends his life attempting to complete himself, to become female. He attempts to do this by constantly seeking out, fraternizing with and trying to live through an fuse with the female, and by claiming as his own all female characteristics -- emotional strength and independence, forcefulness, dynamism, decisiveness, coolness, objectivity, assertiveness, courage, integrity, vitality, intensity, depth of character, grooviness, etc -- and projecting onto women all male traits -- vanity, frivolity, triviality, weakness, etc. It should be said, though, that the male has one glaring area of superiority over the female -- public relations. (He has done a brilliant job of convincing millions of women that men are women and women are men). The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they'd find fulfilling if they were female.

Women, in other words, don't have penis envy; men have pussy envy. When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman... He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from `being a woman'."

"There is no human reason for money or for anyone to work more than two or three hours a week at the very most. All non-creative jobs (practically all jobs now being done) could have been automated long ago, and in a moneyless society everyone can have as much of the best of everything as she wants. But there are non-human, male reasons for wanting to maintain the money system."

"Unable to give love or affection, the male gives money. It makes him feel motherly. The mother gives milk; he gives bread. He is the Breadwinner."

"[Money] Provide the basis for the male's major opportunity to control and manipulate -- fatherhood."

"Mother wants what's best for her kids; Daddy only wants what's best for Daddy, that is peace and quiet, pandering to his delusion of dignity (`respect'), a good reflection on himself (status) and the opportunity to control and manipulate, or, if he's an `enlightened' father, to `give guidance'... Daddy, unlike Mother, can never give in to his kids, as he must, at all costs, preserve his delusion of decisiveness, forcefulness, always-rightness and strength. Never getting one's way leads to lack of self-confidence in one's ability to cope with the world and to a passive acceptance of the status quo. Mother loves her kids, although she sometimes gets angry, but anger blows over quickly and even while it exists, doesn't preclude love and basic acceptance. Emotionally diseased Daddy doesn't love his kids; he approves of them -- if they're `good', that is, if they're nice, `respectful', obedient, subservient to his will, quiet and not given to unseemly displays of temper that would be most upsetting to Daddy's easily disturbed male nervous system -- in other words, if they're passive vegetables. If they're not `good', he doesn't get angry -- not if he's a modern, `civilized' father -- but rather express disapproval, a state that, unlike anger, endures and precludes a basic acceptance, leaving the kid with the feeling of worthlessness and a lifelong obsession wit being approved of; the result is fear of independent thought, as this leads to unconventional, disapproved of opinions and way of life.

For the kid to want Daddy's approval it must respect Daddy, and being garbage, Daddy can make sure that he is respected only by remaining aloof, by distantness, by acting on the precept of `familiarity breeds contempt', which is, of course, true, if one is contemptible. By being distant and aloof, he is able to remain unknown, mysterious, and thereby, to inspire fear (`respect')."

"The affect of fatherhood on males, specifically, is to make them `Men', that is, highly defensive of all impulses to passivity, faggotry, and of desires to be female. Every boy wants to imitate his mother, be her, fuse with her, but Daddy forbids this; he is the mother; he gets to fuse with her. So he tells the boy, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, to not be a sissy, to act like a `Man'. The boy, scared shitless of and `respecting' his father, complies, and becomes just like Daddy, that model of `Man'-hood.

The effect of fatherhood on females is to make them male -- dependent, passive, domestic, animalistic, insecure, approval and security seekers, cowardly, humble, `respectful' of authorities and men, closed, not fully responsive, half-dead, trivial, dull, conventional, flattened-out and thoroughly contemptible. Daddy's Girl, always tense and fearful, uncool, unanalytical, lacking objectivity, appraises Daddy, and thereafter, other men, against a background of fear (`respect') and is not only unable to see the empty shell behind the facade, but accepts the male definition of himself as superior, as a female, and of herself, as inferior, as a male, which, thanks to Daddy, she really is."


Reducing the female to an animal, to Mama, to a male, is necessary for psychological as well as practical reasons: the male is a mere member of the species, interchangeable with every other male. He has no deep-seated individuality, which stems from what intrigues you, what outside yourself absorbs you, what you're in relation to. Completely self-absorbed, capable of being in relation only to their bodies and physical sensations, males differ from each other only to the degree and in the ways they attempt to defend against their passivity and against their desire to be female.

The female's individuality, which he is acutely aware of, but which he doesn't comprehend and isn't capable of relating to or grasping emotionally, frightens and upsets him and fills him with envy. So he denies it in her and proceeds to define everyone in terms of his or her function or use, assigning to himself, of course, the most important functions -- doctor, president, scientist -- therefore providing himself with an identity, if not individuality, and tries to convince himself and women that the female function is to bear and raise children and to relax, comfort and boost the ego if the male; that her function is such as to make her interchangeable with every other female. In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplaceable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm."

"In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music -- all with love. In other words, create a magic world."


Read full text of The S.C.U.M Manifesto