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Unfortunately, on a broad cultural level, the Third Wave is considered a vehicle for humorless political correctness or radical man-hating. Or it's invisible. A few months ago, I wrote a piece for the New York Times Book Review; in it, I suggested that an author was mistaken when she said modern feminism hadn't addressed issues of desire. I got a nasty email from a reader who wanted to know what I was talking about. I looked around at ten years' worth of sexually adventurous books and CDs, ten years' worth of Hooksexup personal essays, and thought, how has this gone unnoticed? Meanwhile, there's Cunt, clutched in Jennifer Scala's hand.
In the abstract universe of a freshman women's-studies class, Cunt might be exciting, just like Valerie Solanas's infamous Scum Manifesto. But in the real world, the one in which Muscio has received copious requests for her home-abortion method, it is not at all quaint. It is a bad book, stupid and sociopathic. It preaches hate with the same disregard for logic and humanity exhibited by Jerry Falwell or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
On her website, Muscio explains where her deep anger and rage at men comes from: she grew up in "a socially blighted backass racist town" and her mother was raped by two men as a child. These are tragedies, and psychically damaging, but they do not make anything Muscio says noble or valid. She is now preaching the same disregard for the rule of law that she grew up with.
Confirming Muscio's extremist position is her latest book, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society. In this book, really more of a muddled, stream-of-consciousness rant about slavery, Native Americans and foreign policy, Muscio calls history as it's taught in the schools "lightly veiled white male supremacist racist propaganda." She calls the U.S. "the United States of Amerikkka," yammers on about Hugo Chavez and offers insights such as, "Fuck Columbus Day." She shows herself to be a run-of-the-mill crackpot. Gone is the blurb from Joan Jett.
On reflection, it makes sense that Jennifer Scala would have had Cunt with her in the courtroom that day, and that she would have had a smile on her face. The book encourages women to take pleasure in harm done to men, particularly harm done to men who are part of the "patrifocal problem." Muscio singles out Islam several times in Cunt, referring at one point to a quote from the Koran as an example of "chicken-shittedness."
But the U.S. government could just as easily have been the implied object of cunt-lovin' rage. An article in the New York Times claimed, "Among all the abuse cases that have reached military courts, the trial of the dog handler, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, had appeared to hold the greatest potential to assign accountability to high-ranking military and perhaps even civilian officials in Washington." But that didn't happen. According to CNN, Smith did not show remorse for his actions. He did say he wished he'd gotten written permission from his superiors first.
Scala's testimony helped convict Smith of an indecent act. It did nothing to bring down the patriarchal system. The feminism I know may have proved more helpful to her. It's built on the premise that men and women should work together to make a better world. It is built on a sense of fairness and justice and decency. What does Cunt offer? Let's just say if I were a woman who had participated in or witnessed the torture of men, I would find it a comfort. n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Hooksexup senior editor Ada Calhoun has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor of New York magazine. She believes next year the Mets will go all the way. |
©2006 Ada Calhoun and hooksexup.com
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