A Dyke A Broad #19
The glorious menpigs of France. More thoughts on quitting. And the Queen is a lezzie!
Hello from Paris!
Even here, there was no escaping Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, which led the French news every morning. The snollygoster should have been impeached, but I never thought he would be. Not just because I’ve watched the Republican Party devolve even further the last four years. But because I watched the groveling Democrats cede to Bush in 2000 with a shrug of Al Gore’s shoulders, then allow Bush’s administration to get off scot-free for launching the Iraq War for oil profits and against imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention the torture he employed in service of it. Why should anything be different now?
As Mary Trump summed it up…
Whatever. I live in Paris now, where it almost feels like spring, but instead of daffodils sprouting up in wild abandon, the joyous patriarchy of France is bringing forth almost unlimited stories of rape, harassment, discrimination, incest.
January’s “scandal” was the tell-all book telling all about the famous political expert and former Socialist Party denizen Olivier Duhamel’s habit of screwing his 14-year old stepson, which inspired tens of thousands incest victims to come out of the closet in #metooinceste Twitter posts.
Last week, a young man, Guillaume, killed himself just three weeks after filing charges for rape against Paris city council member, Maxime Cochard, a Communist Party member, and his partner, Victor Laby, sparking the #metoogay hashtag. They deny the charges.
Most recently, several young female students in the illustrious Institut d’études politiques (Institute of Political Studies) known informally as Sciences Po, filed charges of rape, assault, and sexism in several different branches of the school which trains France’s political (and rapey) elite.
This apparently was only the tip of the iceberg. When the news broke, the internet filled with more stories from current and former students of rape, assaults, and garden variety sexism using the hashtags. #metoo and #sciencesporc (science pig). My fav.
It’s hard to know what this will lead to. Even as people talk about what a breakthrough this is to talk about rape and assault, and President Macron himself promises that incest survivors will no longer suffer alone, the old boys club is closing ranks left to right.
When Alice Coffin, city councilperson, and author of the recent book, Lesbian Genius, visited BFMTV to talk about the scandal at Sciences Po, journalist Bruno Jeudy went on the attack. When she merely observed that “the concentration of men in the same seat of power creates a climate ripe for abuse,” Jeudy quickly twisted her words, and accused her of putting “all men in the same basket.” “And harming her own cause with her radical positions.”
Everybody knew what he was talking about. Alice causes a kerfluffle every time she opens her mouth. Her other outrageous ideas?: That City Hall should boot people complicit or participating in incest, rape, assaults. That it’s a good idea to quit reading books by men for a while and read what women think. That sexism and lesbophobia exist.
Now she’s impugning all men. To the ramparts! ie. Twitter. Where the menpigs and their pigwomen accomplices floated to the surface like so many greasy turds outnumbering her few supporters. Alice was a man-hater. A man-hater who wanted to be a man. They critiqued at length her short hair and unfrilly shirt. Declared her ugly. That no man in his right mind would want to fuck her. She was mentally ill. Should be locked up. Be behind bars for her own safety and that of every man around. A few weighed in to accuse her of harming the “real” feminist movement which apparently never actually criticizes men.
I was disgusted and fascinated watching the twists and turns of logic, and of language, echoing the interview that provoked it. Alice was clearly referring to the category of men, but Jeudy turned it into a personal matter of individuals by accusing her of putting all men in the same basket—no matter that that is how categories (and language) work, creating baskets of things like deplorables, but also distinguishing tables and chairs.
This allowed Jeudy to claim the high ground, #notallmen are sexual predators, but also delegitimize the entire idea of categories, and demand that we ignore the obvious—that the vast majority of sexual predators come from the category comprised of males, or if you prefer, people born with dicks. By invalidating the idea of categories, you can declare abusive males are not just a few bad apples, they are no longer apples at all. And have nothing in common with the group which is not a group and you can’t make me admit that it is!
I found it hard to keep up. The only thing that was clear was that the real problem wasn’t the culture of Sciences Po, or the political world in France, the category of men, misogyny, or sexual predators. The problem was Alice. Man-hating Alice with her short hair and masculine shirt, parading around with the unapologetic label of lesbian. She should be locked up. Or fucked. That would cure her.
It’s like it’s the 1970’s all over again. And we’re mistaken in pretending it’s 2021. Which brings me to last week’s topic: quitting.
Is it useful, or effective, or healthy for women, for dykes, (for me) to keep responding to the world with reason, responding with logic, with moderation, or even language which is so slippery these days, when we are immediately delegitimized by our sex, by our bodies, by our looks—conforming or nonconforming. OMG! Her short hair. OMG! Her shirt. OMG her refusal to suck my dick, to reproduce, to agree with every nugget that drops from my mouth. Though even if your hair is long, and you wear lipstick and suck their dicks, a dissenting, critical female will never be a good woman, but also never an individual worthy of consideration. She is crazy. She is sick. An aberration. Lock her up.
What’s left? If we’re afraid they’ll kill us, and they’ll afraid we’ll laugh at them, maybe we should. Snicker. And sneer. Go all dada on their ass. Become the madwoman in the attic. Why not quit playing the game? Join S.C.U.M.? At least reprise Jill Johnson’s 1971 performance in front of that crowd gathered to discuss feminism in New York’s Town Hall theater when she declared “all women are lesbians except those that don’t know it yet,” before making out with a couple of friends and rolling around on the floor, kissing and laughing while the appalled moderator Norman Mailer begged, “C’mon, Jill. Be a lady.”
Why? Why not? What does any of this get us?
From the Department of Anti-Science Attempts To Be Trans-Inclusive
One British region has instructed midwives to replace the word breastfeeding with chestfeeding. Because the word breast is perceived by some as… noninclusive? Offensive? Girly?
My poor, dear, misguided lickspittles. Breasts are not actually synonymous with chests. Biological males have breasts, too, even get breast cancer. Not chest cancer. It’s a mammal thing. Get it? Mammals. Mammaries. No…?
If you want to be more trans man and enbie inclusive, I would suggest encouraging those tit clinics decorated with giant pink flowers to rethink their decor. The last time I was in one, even I felt a little squirmy. A little afraid of the gaping orchid maws.
And in Happier News—The Queen is a Lesbian
You know who I’m talking about—Golda Rosheuvel who plays Queen Charlotte in the fabulous Bridgerton.
“There’s not a lot of us around who are gay, female, Black and I’m very privileged and blessed to be one of them,” Rosheuval told the celebrity gossip site on Wednesday. “I’m not saying that I speak for a community, I’m a small voice in that community, but I think each of us who has a small voice creates something big and something wonderful for the next generation to see themselves and be proud of.”
Even better, in 2018, the British actress played Othello in a production at the Liverpool Everyman theatre, portraying the character as an out lesbian.
Welp, that’s it for now. I gotta go eat dinner.
Disgruntledly yours,
Belly MacWogswell
Lovely, so true and well written. thank you for translating france in words that relate to my sometimes lonely french abroad feninist lesbianism. Marie