Re: (Tears) The Female Man by Joanna Russ

The link at the bottom of my first followup's wrong.

This followup contains the correct URL for World War Time Loop:
    <https://barsoom.substack.com/p/world-war-time-loop>

James Nicoll wrote:

The Female Man by Joanna Russ
>
A classic novel of female empowerment from an era when the
sexes did not enjoy the current state of perfect tranquility.
>
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/sleep-like-a-baby

    ... In Jeannine's world, the Nazis proved a damp squib,
    World War Two never happened ...

An excerpt addressing the myth of the eternal world war appears at the
end of this followup. Meanwhile, as comic relief, here's what happens
when a female dates a feminist man:

<https://www.tiktok.com/@thedude_248/video/7418966873288576287>

In _A Rambling Wreck_ (Schantz) pickup artist Amit also attempts to
act as a feminist man with a social conscious. Any resemblance to the
"Big Three"'s dearly departed doctor feminist is entirely coincidental.

    "I see what you do," Madison insisted to Amit. "You don't
    fool me. You've been pretending like being Indian is the
    same as being African-American.

    "You think we Indians don't know about oppression?" Amit
    replied indignantly. "For centuries the British ruled
    India with brutality, deposing our rulers, seizing our
    wealth, suppressing and expropriating our culture. Then
    adding insult to injury, you misapply our name to the
    native peoples of this continent." Madison seemed taken
    aback. "You teach yoga, right?"

    "Yeah," she acknowledged, tentatively.

    "Yoga is a holy ritual for us Indians," Amit explained.
    "To see it debased as mere exercise and stretching...
    well, it's a cultural appropriation, an insult, an ethnic
    affront, a symbol of Western imperialism and domination."

    "I didn't know that," Madison looked shocked at the
    magnitude of her previously-unappreciated complicity in
    oppression.

    "Well, you do now," declared Amit, as if putting her on
    notice. "However, we Indians are noted for our generosity
    as well. On behalf of my people, I am prepared to absolve
    you of your guilt for appropriating our traditions. If
    you're going to continue practicing yoga, though, you
    really ought to be instructed by a native about the
    deeper spiritual meaning of our rituals."

    "What kind of rituals?" she asked tentatively.

    "There are various tantric poses that can deliver profoundly
    satisfying spiritual bonds between two people," Amit
    explained. "I could demonstrate," he added, grasping her
    forearm.

    She pulled her arm back. "You are so bad," she said. There
    was a smile on her face, though.

Excerpt from World War Time Loop:

    Escaping the Myth of the Eternal Second World War

    ... It would probably not surprise Eliade in the slightest
    that the war that broke the world he grew up in became the
    foundational myth of the world that grew up in its ruins.
    People need myths. They lack the strength to confront the
    unfiltered procession of atrocities that Eliade called the
    terror of history. In the wake of the unprecedented mass
    trauma of global mechanized total warfare, it was
    inevitable that the war itself would become mythologized.
    In the process, World War Two was stripped of its
    historicity, emptied of nuance, its many hues desaturated
    into shades of grey and then posterized into stark
    silhouettes of black and white. It became a comic book, a
    horror movie, a video game.

    ... In the popular imagination of the Western normie, World
    War Two is an uncomplicated battle between good and evil.
    Hitler is the central character of the drama, a dark god of
    storms, blood, and iron whose hypnotic presence inspires
    unthinking devotion and atavistic werewolf frenzy in all who
    fall under his spell. Hitler is insane, driven by hubris to
    conquer the world, determined to exterminate every people
    that Nazi race science declares inferior to the Aryan
    ubermenschen. Hitler's Nazis are physically perfect,
    wielding technology so advanced it verges on sorcery, but
    irredeemably maddened by infection with Hitler's unreasoning
    hatred of the Other. The avatar of the Other is found in the
    person of the long-suffering, innocent Jew, whose only crime
    is to be scapegoated for his patient wisdom and kindly
    intelligence, which the brilliant but sadistic Nazi cannot
    abide.

    Opposing Hitler, initially reluctantly, are the peace-loving
    Allies - always depicted in Hollywood as Americans first and
    foremost, British secondarily, and Russian almost never ...
    indeed the Russians are quite conspicuous in their absence,
    despite that Russia did most of the fighting ... the bear
    that didn't growl. The Americans and British are not
    ubermenschen like the Nazis - they are just regular Joes,
    honest Midwestern farm boys and maybe slightly-less-than-
    honest Italian dock workers, with no superpower but gumption,
    basic human decency, and a belief in that most sacred of
    ideals, the equality of man. Their leaders embody this well-
    meaning imperfection: Churchill a fat drunk, Franklin Delano
    Roosevelt a cripple, Stalin a ... well let's pass over
    Stalin. Flawed as they may be, unlike Hitler, they are not
    insane; they do not desire to rule the world; they merely
    wish to protect it from the Nazi beast. ...

    <https://barsoom.substack.com/p/world-war-time-loop>

Danke,

--
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telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.    Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'    Make 1984 fiction again.