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by Anonymous User on Saturday November 03, @03:03PM EST (#1)
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This is exactly what I mean when I say that there are a lot of people out there who are NOT cut out for parenthood, and who should choose NOT to have children. Wolf is sad and pathetic, really. It's like she had her kids because she felt she had to in order to achieve societal acceptance, a trap that too many modern parents have fallen into. Wolf is the perfect example of what happens when someone does NOT yearn for parenthood, yet goes ahead and has kids anyway. They never get over the resentment they feel towards the offspring they see as having destroyed their hopes and dreams.
Rather than portraying motherhood as an awful thing for everyone, Wolf would do a much better service if she said that motherhood, and fatherhood, is an awful thing for SOME people. She would do a much better service if she talked about people having *options,* instead of making it sound like everyone must have kids even if they don't want to, and then be doomed to a Hell on Earth.
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by Anonymous User on Saturday November 03, @03:06PM EST (#2)
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I feel really sorry for her kids. They didn't ask to be born to a parent like this. There's no question that they realize exactly how much their mother hates and resents them, especially since she wrote a freaking BOOK about it.
One can only hope that they learned from her terrible example NOT to have children unless they truly want them. Otherwise the vicious cycle will continue.
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You know something...Naomi Wolf makes me sick!!! This article about her book proves why she is the last [if i'm wrong] of a dying breed of femmes! She goes along and yaps about how she doesn't want to have kids, and how she regrets about having them...to me she is both a sellout to the good mothers and a hypocrite like the Christian Coalition! And you think Dr. Warren Farrell got on of his pink slips handed to him on a silver platter by this heartless...oh well, Naomi Wolf opened her mouth and put her foot in it!!!
Enuff Said!
Emmanuel Matteer
Emanslave@aol.com
P.S. Ignore her at all costs!
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What a remarkable and revealing article this is. A few things crossed my mind whilst reading it.
All the talk of abortion and whether a foetus has humanity but can still be killed reminded me of a short story by Philip K. Dick. It's called 'The Pre-Persons', and is set in a society where children are not considered people until the age of twelve. Up to that age they can be legally 'aborted' by their parents, in which case they're rounded up by men in vans and hauled off to extermination centres. It's a while since I read it, but I'm sure it mentions something about women's age-old desire to destroy their sons. It struck me as the kind of thing that would have feminists foaming at the mouth. It was a good read.
Another thing that struck me about Wolf's remarks was the turgid "Me, Me, Me" quality. I have noticed this about feminism many times; that in all situations it seeks to put women in the spotlight as the primary focus of attention and sympathy. Often in relation to the sidelining of men this is obnoxious. For example, Channel 4, a left-leaning TV channel here in the UK, is currently running a series of programmes about the war against terrorism. The trailer to one of these programmmes shows pictures of the scenes of devastation in Manhattan and begins with the factoid 'Over 1000 women lost their husbands'. The number of men who died and the fact that 80% of the victims were male isn't mentioned. You also tend to find that feminist debates about relationships assume female primacy, with the man's task being to accomodate the woman's desires/needs/screwy ideas, etc. And so it goes for children, as Wolf demonstrates. Never mind that the child never asked to be born, let alone born to someone who makes Edina Monsoon in 'Absolutely Fabulous' look mature and selfless! I can imagine the poor child growing up completely overshadowed by its melodramatic, self-absorbed mother, swooning around the house trying to cope with all the effects the existence of the child is having on her. However did women cope before they had their consciousness raised? Perhaps some of them need to work on their conscienciousness.
Would it be too late to abort Naomi Wolf?
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by Anonymous User on Monday November 05, @01:33PM EST (#5)
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I still think the only real solution to problems like this is to make the choice to be childfree a valid, acceptable choice. I'm not talking about abortion or C4M. I'm talking about people who know they don't want children, who know they are not cut out for parenthood, making sure they never, ever conceive a child.
Wolf reminds me quite a bit of my own mother (AND father). Neither of them wanted children. They had me only because society puts such tremendous pressure on everyone to breed. They never got over their resentment and utter hatred of me. Like Wolf sees her kids, they see me as an obstacle that destroyed their dreams and ruined their lives.
I am NOT excusing people who insist on popping out kids (especially multiple kids) that they know damn well they don't want. You are absolutely right in saying that the kid never asked to be born, certainly not to parents like this.
But, I can't help but think what it would be like if only people like this felt like they had more options. Making the childfree lifestyle more acceptable would not completely stop people from having kids they don't want, but I think it would cut down on it tremendously. I really don't think my parents would have had me, had they felt they had the choice not to do so. I really think both of them would have opted for sterilization, had that option been open to them (instead of being coldly denied to young childfree people the way it still is).
This would also cut down on the rage people like this feel over society's bullying them into becoming unwilling parents.
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by Anonymous User on Monday November 05, @07:26PM EST (#6)
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It's a while since I read it, but I'm sure it mentions something about women's age-old desire to destroy their sons.
I found this quote from here halfway down the page:
"It's a certain kind of women advocating this all. They used to call them 'castrating females'. Maybe that was once the right term, except that these women, these hard cold women, didn't just want to - well, they want to do in the whole boy or man, make all of them dead, not just the part that makes him a man. "
Adam H
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in posts to this site, and on my own site, i refer often to an aspect of the feminine that jung and erich neumann call the “terrible mother,” which is shorthand for that aspect of the collective feminine which is overtly hostile to masculinity, unto the point of dismemberment or murder -- i call her the empowered witch
human sacrifice, particularly of male children, is not a myth, and neither is physical child abuse, nor “sudden infant death syndrome,” many cases of which are actually repeated strangulations of children by their mothers, after a fashion that is both ancient and ritualistic
this “negative or devouring” element of the feminine is traceable through both history and prehistory, and was the spur to the development of masculinity itself, and later, “patriarchal” forms of socio-political organization
in the modern west we are undergoing a period of the disassembling of the enervated masculine, the dying toxic king of old-style patriarchy, and a concurrent elevation of the feminine
these are necessary processes which cycle through the species – eventually, however, these processes occult the most malicious aspects of the feminine, allowing it to gain sovereignty and invulnerability – again, this is a recapitulation of the psycho-social evolution of the species, back through the matriarchates – i suppose it falls under the “necessary evil” category
when this occurs, men must come forward and oppose the “terrible mother,” especially in defense of boys, whether they be sons by blood or not
the next stage is the exposition and bringing to collective consciousness of this “negative feminine,” a process we resist with all our might, as would any child
concurrently, manhood itself will be re-shaped – indeed, it will be constellated truly for the first time, a homo noeticus, adam anew
that is what you are building at this moment
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Yup, that's exactly the paragraph I was thinking of. The above quote truncates the paragraph a bit, so here's the full version (a man is explaining this to his son, Walter):
"Listen, Walt, let me lay something on you... The name of all this is kill me. Kill them when they're the size of a fingernail, or a baseball, or later on, if you haven't done it already, suck the air out of the lungs of a ten-year-old boy and let him die. It's a certain kind of woman advocating this all. They used to call them 'castrating females.' Maybe that was once the right term, except that these women, these hard cold women, didn't just want to - well, they want to do in the whole boy or man, make all of them dead, not just the part that makes him a man."
I dug out the relevant collection of Philip K. Dick stories last night and read 'The Pre-Persons' again. What's kind of ironic about it is that the man who said the above quote has this idea of running away to Canada with his son to get away from his 'castrating female' wife. Given some of the things feminists are getting up to in Canada these days, it's probably one of the last places any man would want to escape to with his son.
'The Pre-Persons' was first published in 'Fantasy & Science Fiction' in October 1974. Writing about it in 1978, Dick said:
"In this I incurred the absolute hate of Joanna Russ who wrote me the nastiest letter I've ever received; at one point she said she usually offered to beat up people (she didn't use the word 'people') who expressed opinions such as this. I admit that this story amounts to special pleading, and I am sorry to offend those who disagree with me about abortion on demand. I also got some unsigned mail, some of it not from individuals but from organisations promoting abortion on demand. Well, I have always managed to get myself into hot water. Sorry, people. But for the pre-person's sake I am not sorry. I stand where I stand: 'Hier steh' Ich; Ich kann nicht anders,' as Martin Luther is supposed to have said."
The German means 'Here stand I; I can't do otherwise.'
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canada ain't no refuge, and the time for running's over anyway
note well the reaction of writer joanna russ to mere reference to the terrible mother in fiction -- she "usually offered to beat up [expletive]who expressed opinions such as this"
i guess her bully boys weren't handy
dick rightly calls her reaction one of "absolute hate"
this from an "artist" -- one who should be championing free speech, whether it offends her or not
now -- who and what is she so violently protecting?
lace is the curtain and hidden the wound
before we get too bogged down in the abortion issues, let's see to the safety of those ten-year-old boys who can't seem to breathe
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