[b]Erica Jong
The words carry their own momentum. A confession in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton’s first law of jealousy.[/b]
Well, perhaps not an actual law here.
You don’t have to beat a woman if you can make her feel guilty.
Maybe, but how about a man?
Rendall’s first law of jealousy: jealousy does the cock harder and pussy wetter.
Any particular Rendall?
Yet a man assumes that a woman’s refusal is just part of a game. Or, at any rate, a lot of men assume that. When a man says no, it’s no. When a woman says no, it’s yes, or at least maybe. There is even a joke to that effect. And little by little, women begin to believe in this view of themselves. Finally, after centuries of living under the shadow of such assumptions, they no longer know what they want and can never make up their minds about anything. And men, of course, compound the problem by mocking them for their indecisiveness and blaming it on biology, hormones, premenstrual tension.
Let’s pin down the percentages here: genes more or less than memes?
I quickly learned that a book carefully arranged before your face was a bulletproof shield, an asbestos wall, a cloak of invisibility. I learned to take refuge behind books, to become, as my mother and father called me, ‘the absentminded professor-’ They screamed at me, but I couldn’t hear. I was reading. I was writing. I was safe.
Trust me: Don’t expect this to always work.
No wonder the word ‘feminism’ was feared. It had been much too narrowly defined. I define a feminist as a self-empowering woman who wishes the same for her sisters. I do not think the term implies a certain sexual orientation, a certain style of dress or membership in a certain political party. A feminist is merely a woman who refuses to accept the notion that women’s power must come through men.
Not counting Mr. Reasonable of course.