[lbo-talk] Hi Tea

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Dec 14 22:13:53 PST 2003


On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, joanna bujes wrote:


> > I think that's what leaving the toilet seat up is about. It's not
> > that women want to have one. But they get infuritated at boys who
> > imply they ought to. And leaving the seat up seems like a childish
> > way of taunting them while pretending you're just being objective.
> > They feel like they're being gaslighted. That's what makes them nuts."
>
> I think you're close -- though I'm not sure it's about penis envy.

Joanna, I specifically said in the second sentence it's *not* about having penis envy. It's about being taunted that you have penis envy, *which is even more infuriating when you don't.* And taunting of any sort is doubly infuriating when the people doing it insist that you're just over-reacting.

Women don't have penis envy. Men have penis pride. That's what infuriates women when it accidentally leaks out. It's not the truth that infuriates. It's how unjustified the smugness is.

Jon talked about obliviousness, which is a form that makes taunting triply infuritating. For what physical difference is it that men are pretending to be oblivious to? And which of us men could convince anyone that it really wouldn't matter to us personally if in our case that difference were removed tomorrow? It is not a difference we are actually oblivious to. We're just pretending we're oblivious to it. We might succeed in pretending even to ourselves. But it doesn't make it not pretend.

This gaslighting obliviousness to a clangingly obvious fact about our bodily identities can also often be seen in disputes about race.

What Freud called the unconscious is mostly just the meaning of emotions. They are where nonsense often makes perfect sense and hides in the plain sight of everyone.

Michael



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