“If there is a self proper to woman, paradoxically it is her capacity to depropriate herself without self-interest… If she is a whole, it is a whole made up of parts that are wholes, not simple partial objects but varied entirety, moving and boundless change, a cosmos where eros never stops travelling, vast astral space… Her libido is cosmic, just as her consciousness is worldwide.” That’s Hélene Cixous in her seminal 1975 work The Newly Born Woman. It was a text of massive importance to women’s movement – bringing a sense of real cohesion to French Feminism, undermining the structural integrity of Western Patriarchy and opening up new possibilities, new dynamics, to the progressive thinking-classes. It’s also fucking bullshit.
As a child, I was brought up to believe that Woman could do no wrong. I was brainwashed and radicalised to the feminist cause from about the age of six –spent hours at a time droning out phrases like ‘I don’t believe in sterotypes’ and ‘the Swiss only gave women the vote in 1979’. Somewhere, deep deep down, I have a shadow-memory of my mother actually burning a bra.
Well, the conditioning worked: until very recently I couldn’t watch porn without getting tearful; couldn’t abide violence to women; would become vocal and right-on whenever I heard misogyny spoken out loud. But now all that has changed. I’ve given up and learned to hate you people. You are snakes with tits.
So here’s a list of complaints, questions and accusations I’ve drawn up against women, specifically girlfriends, and more specific still, Girlfriend X, the one I broke up with on Friday after three years of almost Kafkaesque female bullshit:
• When you said Marley and Me was ‘actually very funny’ and that I would ‘probably really enjoy it’, did you imagine that I would really sit there for 90 minutes, laughing and laughing and laughing, stopping only to dry a tear or ram another handful of chocolates into my mouth? Because I didn’t.
• If David Irving, Holocaust denier, made annoying video art, or if he had even slightly better hair, you would probably think he was ‘a very sweet guy’.
• I’d be curious to find out the precise moment you decided to give up on blowjobs?
• That African village you ‘helped out’ on your gap year, didn’t need your ‘help’ at all – they needed you to: A) give them money B) lobby their rogue government, or, C) leave them the fuck alone.
• Having worn dreadlocks as a teenager does not constitute (or demonstrate) a ‘more spiritual’ personality.
• When I was growing up, I was always taught that girls liking animals and money was a myth perpetuated by the fascist Patriarchy – apparently not.
• You have an exhaustive knowledge of pets, reality television and expensive clothes, yet still don’t understand the fundaments of maths, grammar or politics. When, and how, did you make that call?
• If obnoxious had a face and a voice, it would be your dogs face and your dogs voice. (Reader: do dogs have voices? I just don’t know)
• The Outsiders is by no stretch of the imagination a good book, or even a book written for adults.
• Watership Down is not a book written for adults.
• Ring of Bright Water is, also, not a book written for adults.
• 101 Dalmatians is, again, not a book written for adults.
• When you referred to Queen Elizabeth II as ‘Queeny’ – with no obvious sense of irony – I felt like doing a hate crime.
• You can’t say things like “was that a good seed?” after sex. We do not live in the land of milk and honey. I am not Moses.
• You voted for the Conservatives. You said you didn’t, but I know you did.
• David Lynch’s movies are not ‘too weird’ – you’re too normal.
Having said all this, Girlfriend X was one of the better ones. Not only did she smile, nod and agree with me during my bouts of crazy – almost narcissistic – self-belief (age 24 “I think I’m going to be the best cultural theorist in the world”; age 25 “time to fast-track my career”; age 26 “I’ve just got what it takes”; age 27 “I’m definitely a big-shot now”) but, also, performed a lot of hair stroking, quiet encouragement, and sad-face when I hit those inevitable and crushing lows (age 24 “I think my parents really damaged me”; age 25 “I’m not cut out for this”; age 26 “I am the loneliest man on earth”; age 27 “I need help”).
And let’s not forget: this was also the woman who, when I was found, weeping, at the tail-end of a four-day drug bender, gently eased off her top and rubbed her tits in my face… for that I am truly grateful. It was inspired. I will never forget that.