bitter
you got a problem with that?
by rebecca eisenberg
yet another joint ReadMe and Rebecca's Rants effort
Everyone wants to know why I am so bitter. They call me rude names, such as "antagonistic" and "hostile," even though I can come off as pretty floozy, even dippy, on face to face meeting. Hell, I am even known to wear floral polyester lounge minidresses and put weird cutesie things in my hair.
Nonetheless, bitterness is a quality that no lounge mini or platform plastic shoes can hide. The bottom line is yes, I am bitter. And, indeed, sometimes I am even antagonistic and hostile.
But none of this is my fault. It is this shitty, cruel, and utterly unjust world that creates my rage. So, go ahead and point your finger at me -- telling me I am uncouth, or impolite, or stubborn, or closed-minded, or abrasive, or antagonistic, or hostile. I will merely point my finger at all the things that you -- yes you, non-gentle reader -- in all probability take part in enforcing.
I am merely doing my small part in refusing to contribute to the tyranny of unexplained unfairness we call this world.
The following is an unexhaustive list of things and/or people that make me furious, and, on occasion, fill me with rage that manifests itself in hate:
- the two-gender social system
- sexism
- people who do not know the difference between "sex" (a biological quality) and "gender" (a socially-constructed entity)
- racism
- ignorance (the above being subsets of this category)
- people who refuse to learn.
- people who eat meat.
- people who mistreat animals.
- people who get their kicks out of dominance and subordination.
- people who are intellectually lazy; who refuse to think.
- people who are willfully blind; who refuse to see.
- people who apologize for the status quo, and insist that there is no use in attempting to change it.
- people who tend to argue with positions that they do not understand, rather than attempt to understand them, because they are so afraid of having their comfortable belief system challenged.
- diffuse hatred, or misdirected hostility, since it seems to suggest self hate more than anything else, and is unnecessarily unleashed upon the incorrect target.
- the institution of marriage.
- organized religion.
- gender-enforcers, and belief-system-enforcers, and most history textbooks, and lies taught through the media.
- the conventional workplace.
- the nuclear family.
- the prison system.
- state mental "hospitals."
- forced medication
- drug laws.
- first-amendment libertarian apologists.
- so called "domestic" violence and "sexual" harassment, both of which are contradictions in terms.
- men who hate women
- women who hate women
- people who call bisexuals "wanna-bi dykes"
- gender enforcers (again)
- slavery
- money.
By setting myself apart from these practices and beliefs, I risk being strewn aside as an outcast, ostracized from mainstream society at large, banished to an existence of loneliness. That might sound bad -- what do I get if I conform? Society's shallow acceptance, respect from people I do not respect myself, money, and, --- oh, joy! -- the prospect of Big Dick.
But I would rather be Big-Dickless, and alone, and ostracized, and treated with contempt, yet still be able to look myself in the mirror, than I would like to conform for the sake of getting along.
Fuck it. There are so few people actually willing and eager to vocally question everything -- much less authority -- and much less female people -- that I might as well put myself out on the line, as long as no one else is. I mean, someone has to balance out the extremism on the other side; the extremism that is so pervasive that it is viewed as mainstream.
I really do not need or want your barbies, or your fashion shows, or your "Mad About You," or your so-called Bill of (white men's) Rights," or your hypocritical corrupt politicians, or your anti-sex anti-woman laws, or your fascist history texts, or your contrived capitalistic democracies.
All I want is a feeling of intellectual honesty. And, so far, I am achieving my goal. Are you?
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Copyright 1996 Rebecca Eisenberg mars@bossanova.com. All rights reserved.