misogyny – The Potty Mouth Granny

Adventures in Epilepsy Land & Other Shit

So in January, I had another seizure and now I’m on two anti seizure medications. The new one Vimpat is classified as a Schedule 5 narcotic so now I’m a dopefiend☠️☠️☠️. I’m exaggerating but I’m so damn tired, even more tired than I was before. My vision is blurry, my balance is off. In layman terms, I’m fucked up but no one gives a fuck. I had plans to attend a concert tonight that I paid for in December but physically, I wasn’t up to it. I have insurance on the ticket so I will get my money back eventually but I’m pissed. At this stage in my life, I thought I would be somewhere with a drink in my hand and my ass tooted up in the air but nah. I’m in the bed on the weekends with a cat. Who had the audacity to beat my ass a few weeks ago because I went out for a few hours.

No one understands the strength it takes me to deal with this medication. The amount of willpower it takes me to get out the bed four to five days a week to go to work. To keep from falling asleep while working. To merely exist in a culture that has a profound contempt for the disabled. Especially if you are a Black fat woman.

Epilepsy is a hidden disability meaning that the average person who sees me will never know that I’m an epileptic. So people don’t take my disability seriously at all. I had to snap out on my supervisor for asking me to do some work that my reasonable accommodation paperwork clearly states that I can’t do. Man I let that bitch have it without saying one cuss word. She hasn’t asked me to do anything else that’s not in my scope but her stanking ass won’t give me the work that I do very well which is responding to customers emails. Out of complete spite and stupidity. I will never understand why some women treat other women like shit but will kiss the crack of the ass of the man who they are currently fucking but treats them like dirt.

I made a reminder for me to blog once a week on Sundays and I’ve only done it a few times. Partly because my energy levels are in the gutter but I’ve also realized that my niche is not particularly popular so I’ve been like “fuck it why bother?” People aren’t that bright and only care about superficial shit like no talent reality television “stars” and relationships. Do I sound bitter? Yep and so what? I have the right to be upset about being a great writer who can’t get on in a culture that rewards mediocrity. Hell yeah.

So for those who happen to read this, I just wanted to ramble for a little bit. I might blog Sunday but more than likely, I will be in the bed with my cat. Such is the life of a middle aged epileptic.

An Analysis of Betty Friedan’s The Problem That Has No Name

In an excerpt from her book, “The Feminine Mystique”, Betty Friedan defines women’s unhappiness during the Fifties as ”the problem that has no name.” She identifies “the problem that has no name” as upper-middle class suburban White women experiencing dissatisfaction with their lives and an inarticulated longing for something else beside their housewifely duties. She pins the blame on a media perpetuated idealized image of femininity, a social construction that tells women that their role in life is catch a man, keep a man, have children and put the needs of one’s husband and children first.

According to Friedan, women have been encouraged to confine themselves to a very narrow definition of “true” womanhood, forsaking education and career aspirations in the process by experts who wrote books, columns and books that told women during that era that their greatest role on the planet was to be wives and mothers. The role of a “real” woman was to have no interest in politics, higher education and careers and women were taught by these experts to pity women who had the nerve to want a life beyond the cult of true womanhood.

If women expressed dissatisfaction with their charmed lives, the experts blamed their feelings on the higher education they received before becoming a housewife. During the fifties, little girls as young as ten years were being marketed by underwear advertisers selling brassieres with false bottoms to aide them in catching boyfriends and American girls began getting married in high school. America’s birthrate during this time skyrocketed and college educated women made careers out of having children. The image of the beautiful, bountiful Suburban housewife was accepted as the norm and women drove themselves crazy, sometimes literally to achieve this goal.

Friedan ultimately concluded that “the problem that has no name” is not a loss of femininity, too much education, or the demands of domesticity but a stirring of rebellion of millions of women who were fed up with pretending that they were happy with their lives and that solving this problem would be the key to the future of American culture.

Radical Crone Feminism

As I get older, I’m finding that my personal brand of feminism is getting more radical. Now I’m not talking about kill all the men or any nonsense like that, but as I age, I just don’t give a fuck about the opinions of men anymore. Regardless of race, regardless of their socioeconomic status in life. Dirt poor or filthy rich, if you are a man, your opinions of womanhood don’t mean a heap of merde (French for shit) to me.

I can’t speak for all women collectively but for me, getting older has been a blessing because I did some foolish things as a younger woman and now my mind is clear as freshly cleaned glass. When I look back, I just shake my head and thank the ancestors that I’m still alive to tell my tale. The most foolish thing I did as a young woman was live with two men (not at the same time☠️) and it’s two of my biggest regrets as a woman. No woman should live with a man that she’s not married to because it’s not worth it. Why should a young woman waste her youth, energy and resources cleaning, cooking, and sexing a man who is not her husband? It doesn’t make any sense and I’m not even a big proponent of marriage these days but shacking is an exercise in futility. He’s getting the best without having to do anything. Marriage is a legally binding contact that brings certain privileges for both parties. Particularly for women when it comes to children.

But marriage is still very important for a large portion of women and that is why they be jumping through hoops of fire, trying to prove their worthiness to men who in some cases, aren’t worth two dead flies. Moving in with men that they barely know, auditioning to be wives. Just foolishness all the way around.

If I ran society, I would encourage women to concentrate on themselves and stop listening to the voices of men. Tap into their femininity and I’m not talking about this soft and meek shit thats being sold to the parched masses by shysters. I’m talking about that Kali femininity. Kali is an Indian goddess who’s a bad chick. She’s considered the goddess of death in some circles and others, the epitome of womanhood. She’s a wild woman and women of today need to aspire to that wildness. This is a patriarchal society that we live in and in order to survive as a woman, you have to be strong and cunning or you will become prey for these wolves. So stop serving yourselves up on a silver platter to men who look like roadkill y’all.

The New Dirty Word – Feminism

Before I joined the social media, I used to read articles from the website Salon.com and debate folks in the now defunct comment section. At one time, Salon had a website named Open Salon for the readers who were writers and yours truly won Editors Choice a few times. But I’m digressing as usual so let me tell this tale.

What fascinated me the most about Salon is that whenever articles from prominent feminists were posted, the men would be foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs in the comments, writing barely coherent paragraphs filled with rage against them stanking ass feminists and spewing how the world was a much better place when women knew their “place.”

And the vast majority of these men were white men. It wasn’t a lot of Black folks in the comments during that time period and I was just amazed at the anger from these men who are on the top of the economic and social totem pole in America. Even with all this power, they felt threatened by women having autonomy over their lives.

I’m really not surprised. Feminism which can defined as women being able to have the same rights as men drives normally sane people batshit crazy. Because you know women are supposed to stay in their place, cooking and cleaning, having babies, and shutting the fuck up. Women are supposed to walk in the shadows, never basking in the glory of their own sun. How dare these bitches think they have the right to control their own destinies and bodies without male interference? Shame on them!

But I hadn’t seen nothing yet until I joined Facebook and saw the venom that so many Black men have for the ideology called feminism. These men blame feminism for kicking Black men out of their homes by giving poor Black women access to welfare. For allowing Black women to become educated and have careers. For breathing. For weave. Makeup. Everything that’s wrong in the Black community has been placed at the feet of feminism. And it’s the most pathetic shit in the world.

Feminism makes the world a better place because it gives women options. The option of not having children or ten children. The option of being a career woman or a stay at home mother. And the option of doing absolutely nothing at all. Freedom to live without a ton of societal rules, expectations, and regulations just because you were born female. It’s nothing wrong with women being free to control their lives. Nothing at all.

The Real Reason Why Men Hate & Fear Perfectly Content Single Women

Men lose their minds at thought of a woman perfectly content with her own company. Because that means that they can’t hold a relationship and a possible marriage over her head along with a passel of brats.

They can’t constantly chant “that’s why you’re single!” to a woman who truly doesn’t give a fuck. Those types of scare tactics doesn’t work on a woman who’s secure in herself and knows that her womanhood doesn’t hinge upon saddling herself with a man not worth two dead flies and children with his fucked up DNA.

For centuries, women have been socialized to believe that their only purpose in life is to get married and spit out the next generation of dysfunctional, unhappy people but after three waves of feminism, women have been taking off the patriarchal blinders and seeing American culture for what it is: a system that hates women and children so many are opting out.

A culture that respected and revered women and children would make it easier for them to exist. It would have a better healthcare system so that women wouldn’t be still dying in childbirth in the year 2021.

A culture that respected and revered women and children would have a national and generous maternity leave for expectant mothers that would allow them to rest and bond with their babies.

A culture that respected and revered women and children would have a nationally funded childcare program in which families wouldn’t be charged college tuition for daycare.

And most importantly, a culture that respected and revered women and children wouldn’t be still trying to force women into having children that they do not want. It’s almost 2022 and certain states in this country are trying to reverse Roe versus Wade, Supreme Court decision that gave women the right to abortion. It’s mind boggling that women who live in a supposedly enlightened, so called superior country are still fighting for autonomy over their own bodies.

So that’s why men fear and despise a happy single woman. They know that these women are free and can’t be subjugated into taking on trash so they try through violence or legislation to keep them in their place as walking wombs.