The Natives Go Naive

Just when I think this blog is utterly pointless. Just when I feel like a total and complete fool for trying to write anything at all. Just when it all seems so hopeless. That’s (of course, of course!) when I come face-to-face with the type of ignorance that could drive anyone mad.

Those were only words.

What’s the big deal?

Don’t be so naive.

Grow up.

Get over it.

Honey, I could say the same thing about you. Get over it. The ramifications of emotional abuse are severe. Emotional abuse distorts the way you see yourself and the abuse itself. Emotional abuse should not be overlooked any longer. At a basic level, consider that individuals who suffer from physical forms of abuse often have that abuse compounded when there are emotionally abusive components. Why? A scared person tries to escape at every opportunity. A terrified person reacts with force. But, a numb person apologizes for the abuse she has suffered. Because she knows there is nothing better on the other side of the fence. Not only is the grass not greener elsewhere, but is is often rotten.

Women are encouraged to numb themselves. Dull their emotions. Without those emotions, they are number and more likely to stick around. When you are numb, the ongoing pain is less real to you. We know this. That’s obviously why medical patients are numbed with drugs prior to procedures. What’s the big deal?

How are women numbed? By a steady dose of misogyny every day. Every waking hour. Women are broken down from a young age through objectification. Before a girl enters puberty, she has already been trained through millions of stories and images about what type of women she should be and what type of woman she should condemn. Don’t be so naive. That is called an education! The problem is that the type of woman she should condemn is the type of woman she will inevitably be: a person with a range of emotions, including anger, bitterness, resentment, and jealously; a person with body hair; a person with occasional bouts of misery and despair; a person who experiences varying bouts of loneliness; and a person with sexual desires. All of this is condemned in women. So, the road map given to a girl is a guide to self-destruction. Should she become a woman in nature, she will be condemned. So, instead, she becomes a woman in misogyny.

Do not be deceived. There is nothing natural about misogyny. There is nothing natural about the abuse of man over woman. The preferred analogy of the misogynist is of the hunter-gatherer society in which men hunt and woman gather. Consider the prototypical hunter-gatherer society. I’ll even grant you the gender division. Women stay in the the village, caring for the young and elderly, foraging for fruits and vegetables, and preparing meals. Men venture out of the village for days to weeks at a time; they work together to mostly chase around big game. Occasionally, the men will chase an animal long enough that the animal will become depleted of energy and die. (In traditional hunting, animals did not die from weapons; they died from exhaustion. Recall, that humans have the ability to sweat, which is a trait not shared universally.) These men would butcher and preserve the animal for the whole village.

This quaint picture of a hunter-gatherer society demonstrates the effectiveness of division of labor. Individuals collectively contribute to a goal bigger than themselves, which none could achieve individually. The women benefit from the occasional rewards of the hunt. Meat is rare, but it is calorie-dense. The men benefit from the daily rewards of the harvesting. Fruits and vegetables are plentiful, but offer few calories. Together, the villagers have a diversified diet that protects them from famine.

Somehow, this picture becomes distorted into a catch-all excuse for the abuses of power by men. A man in modern society is a “hunter” who prides himself in taking whatever he wants whenever he wants it. He can “take” businesses, wealth, fame, power, influence, and, most disturbingly, women. This modern “hunter” is self-interested; he takes from others to satisfy his ego. He “takes” from women who are in his own “tribe” or “village” simply because he feels like it. The victim of his “hunt” is not a buffalo, sacrificed for the hunger of his whole village. No, don’t be so naive. The victim of his hunt is his own neighbor. Ask yourself what sort of hunter that is. A man who abuses those amongst him.

Furthermore, consider that the hunters of hunter-gatherer societies did not abuse the animals prior to slaughter. They did not chain the animals up or starve them out. I will not romanticize the slaughter of an animal. It is brutal. It should not be held out over time and prolonged for that is what would make it abuse.

Now, consider the modern “hunter” who makes degrading remarks about the appearance of women, of their intelligence, of their demands for rights. That is no hunter; that is an abuser. Grow up. Look at abuse for what it is. Telling women they are disgusting, legislating their bodies, paying them inadequate wages, assaulting them and coercing them to sign non-disclosure agreements about their own assaults, and calling them liars every time they acknowledge any of this has nothing to do with the “hunt.”

The hunt was for the village. The abuse is for the singular man who is given free reign by a society that loves to hate women.