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10 lines
2.9 KiB
HTML
<h1>CHAPTER 5</h1>
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<h2>Oldspapers and The Evening Olds</h2>
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<p>And that's <i>all</i> that's new. So every time we say the words "newspapers" and "evening news" - let alone actually read their pages and watch them on the TV screen - we fortify the assumption necessary to patriarchy that men have power, that they are doing something new, that they are changing things, that the system is dynamic, alive, fresh, real. Those words reconfirm our fears that because what feminists are doing is not in the "news," we are not doing anything new or vital, not making any difference, that we have no power, that we are not important.</p>
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<p>When we stop to think about it, we know that none of this is true. We know that, contrary to the promotion hook in the word "news," patriarchy is obsolete, stagnant, weak and false.</p>
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<p>One glance at what men call newspapers confirms this. There is nothing in them from front to back that we couldn't have predicted. Any one of us, if required, could sit down at a desk and create a most plausible "newspaper" from scratch. Why? Because there is absolutely nothing new in any of them whatever. Patriarchy, like the senile system it is, merely repeats itself endlessly, mumbles the same old formula for success: bigness, control, winning, money, status, fear, hatred, scarcity, violence.</p>
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<p>I am not willing deliberately to reinforce my self-hatred by lying to myself with words such as these that I <i>know</i> are harmful to me. So when I must, I speak of the <i>olds</i>papers and the evening <i>olds</i>, keeping my imagistic mind as free of manipulative clutter as possible.</p>
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<p>I no longer subscribe to or read oldspapers or olds magazines or watch or listen to the olds on TV or radio. I know that women are the only ones with the power to do anything new in the world, the only creative people now on earth. Women's world is just being born, men's is dead and lies around us rotting, waiting for us to bury and forget it. This is still so hard for me to remember, to internalize, and to <i>feel</i> that I take great care not to subvert my delicate new consciousness by slipping comfortably into my former language, laden as it is with false assumptions.</p>
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<p>Those who think this is a silly notion need only ask themselves how many women they know have stopped reprogramming themselves with self-hate and powerlessness every day by refusing to read the oldspapers or watch the evening olds; they are the neighbors, friends, kin of those who pooh-pooh such behavior. Everywhere I go I meet such women, some of whom would not dream of calling themselves feminists. But they are women of our time. They are tired of feeling vulnerable and victimized, and they have come to the end of toleration of men's weakness and stupidity parading as power and brilliance. They tell me that it bores them and they don't care how politically incorrect that sounds to others.</p>
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<p>Me either.</p>
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