Return of “Kings” – excuse me while I vomit!

This post is about as far in the opposite direction from my usual as you could possibly go and I want to apologise for even bringing this subject up but it’s disturbed and disgusted me, I need to say something about this!

A few weeks back I went to watch the movie The Suffragettes. This was one of the best movies I have ever been to and it was quite emotional for me, the bravery of these women at a time when women weren’t allowed a voice at all, was something I had never quite fully appreciated. To know there are still women in the world who have no rights or are still fighting this fight saddens me. Last week I was parking at a supermarket when some really cool young guy pulled up in his beat up old car next to me, radio blaring with some rap song and I caught the words “If you live with the f*#@! whore….” repeated over and over, he gets out of his car and saunters over to the shop with some weird macho walk that reminded me of some birds crazy mating strut while I am still sitting in my car wondering about just how far SOME men have come?!

So, this week I read this in my newsfeed from one of our TV news channels. Group wanting to Legalise Rape to Meet in NZ This is about an international online group headed by some freak called Roosh V – name Daryush Valizadeh. He has over 40,000 subscribers to the one blog I looked at and they are planning meetings through 42 countries worldwide. His articles on his site are along the lines of How Feminism Killed the Nice Guy and some really fine “dating” tips, along with a pile of other shit plus the meeting destinations and times that are apparently being changed as we speak because strangely, the rest of the world is outraged and there is some backlash.

I saw this first through Facebook and there were alot of comments about it, most of it of course negative. What surprised me though were the men who genuinely feel Feminists/”Feminazis” caused all this backlash against all women and I went to this blog Roosh V to see all the other similar comments by men. It’s chilling.

I would call myself a Feminist, most western women would too if it came down to it. Has this been to “the demise of the Western woman and society” as they think it has? We aren’t compliant enough, traditional enough, too much to say for ourselves…! Why would I call myself a Feminist, let me count the ways! In fact, let me describe my life as a female born in the late 50’s and a teenager or young adult in the 70’s when fights were still being fought over our role in life.

My parents were drinkers and had lots of parties. I couldn’t possibly count the number of “Uncles” we had to kiss goodnight as tiny kids, some nice men but also drunk men I remember kissed you on the lips and patted your bottom and told you how pretty you are and made a big fuss about you sitting on their knee to have a cuddle. You start school at 5 and walk there and back on your own, on more than one occasion you are approached by a guy with his pants around his knees and calling you over. You spend the rest of your primary school days walking around the long way home but you never mention it because it’s just normal but weird – you don’t know any better at that age. From around the age of ten you have drive-by men making the same suggestive comments and following alongside you in their car. A little bit older and you have your father’s mates commenting on how lucky he is having 4 beautiful daughters around all the time to look at, leering. My father was prone to aggression, we saw him hit our mother and we were children to be “seen and not heard” let alone express an opinion on anything. I knew very young no man was ever going to hit me and get away with it. As a young teenage girl you are hit on by every male in the vicinity, wolf whistled at in public, groped by brother’s mates and that becomes your normal. You do things you think is normal because you don’t know any better. At 15 you get pregnant to a 24 year old who was actually just nice to you, second baby to him not long after. Your first live in boyfriend punches a huge hole in the wall when you duck and he misses your face. As a young solo mother you are assaulted by a stranger who feels free to enter your home, who has obviously been watching you.

After this you experience lifelong and crippling anxiety of strangers and some men. You live with and marry the first man who asks so you feel safe and you make a long term mistake in judgement. You raise a family, you work fulltime because you need the money, you need to feed and home your kids. You try to do it all because you are a woman, it’s expected of you – your husband however actually just has to have a job. Most men in those days were still very traditional deep down, they expected dinner on the table after work and their beer chilling in the fridge and you could expect dramas if it wasn’t that way. they also expected you to earn your share of the income as well. I want even start on work bullshit from males.

Women, our daughters, needed better and they have it. They are their own people and so they should be – free to make choices and to say NO when they want. If they want to be a stay at home mum they can be (if they can afford it) If they want to be the sort of girl easily picked up in bars that is their choice, that is where they are at for whatever reason. Too many, even Western women are still not free because they have been, often since birth, disempowered – the domestic abuse numbers in this country are staggering. I have worked in mental health, I have heard stories far worse than mine of women struggling mentally because of some sort of abuse.

Yes, I am a feminist. I WANT EQUAL RIGHTS AND RESPECT FOR WOMEN! Period. Has my belief system and that of most other women caused the downfall of society? Really? Isn’t equal rights for all humans part of our evolution – I would’ve thought so. No matter what gender, what colour, what financial status, we should all be fighting the fight towards equality.

The reason why I am writing this here is because I would like just one man from that group of dysfunctional shitheads to read this – You are not “Kings” you are scum. You wanted to find somewhere where your ethos in life fits so you found yourself in a tribe. Woohoo, good on you, I bet you feel empowered in yourself now! Dude, you just joined with the rest of the dregs of our downfallen society, if we think society couldn’t get much worse you just proved it could. I hope your karma will be the biggest “bitch” you ever met.

R.E.M Everybody Hurts Work towards a better world, not worse.

Rant over