Friday, March 11, 2005

When the Lights Went Out In Parsippany

The power throughout most of Parsippany, NJ went out this morning around 6am, and by 10am, all of us in the office were figuring out ways to get the hell out of town for the weekend.

I hopped a train(s) into Brooklyn, and am currently spending my time hanging out at Brendan's until Saturday's touchdown back in Chicago...

Ah. To be home again. Jiggety-jig.

Looking forward to getting back into my old routine. Attempted a co-run with B, and found myself in staggeringly bad shape. I've seriously got to get my eating and exercise schedule back into shape.... very, very sad.

7 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

"Brutal Women " ? Hey do you know my ex-wife? Now there was a brutal woman !! :) 

Posted by Paul

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Nice work here.  

Posted by Genia

Anonymous said...

brutality comes from testosterone, not from some cultured, affected emotive state, hollywood inspired parlor games. I hope the reality of this never comes to you in some parking lot or side street. Cop/ex USMC 

Posted by Stones

Anonymous said...

::snort:: excuse me while I finish choking on my coffee.

This argument really has nothing to do with the post it's attached to, so I assume you're a random reader and not a regular. So, hell, I'll humor you.

Not only do broad statements like the one implied above do a disservice to men (men are just “naturally” violent! They can’t help themselves! All men are naturally inclined to slaughter people, which is why we have to have a military establishment that indoctrinates men by brutalizing and dehumanizing them and “the enemy” in order to convince them to kill people, and why they’re so incredibly well-adjusted immediately after coming home from combat), but it also does a disservice to women’s aggression by pretending that they don’t have any and haven’t ever had any, cause they have “less” of that vital testosterone than men do. So historical accounts of groups of women tearing people (literally) limb from limb, and finding the bones of female warriors (buried with their very functional sword and armor) in 7,000 year old graves in Iran, and women guerilla fighters today, yesterday, tomorrow, get shoved under the carpet as some kind of anomaly, when in fact, history and the present day finds oodles and oodles of accounts of brutal women kicking ass and effeminate men who think blood is really fucking gross and would rather hide under the bed than show any aggression whatsoever.

It’s a false belief that “all” men are “naturally” aggressive and “all” women are “naturally” passive (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean). If you want to socialize women to be killers and put them through military training (which, you know, is being done and has been done), you’ll find that women can be just as brutally scary as men who are put through the same training.

Arguing that men are just brutes because they naturally can’t help themselves reduces men to unthinking beasts and savage, drooling idiots, and I think that’s a cruel cop-out to shove down men’s throats. Keep telling somebody that they’re “naturally” one way, and they’ll start to think there’s something wrong with them for not being that way, and they'll push themselves to violent, unhealthy, unhappy extremes trying to conform to a masculine "norm."

And that's not fair to anybody.
 

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

May whatever deities you favor bless you, Stones. If none, then accept mine.

Signed, a man who doesn't necessarily think that blood is "fucking gross", but doesn't have the heart to make anyone bleed. 

Posted by Quiet Man