After I grew desperate with The Nation, I decided to turn to that journalistic bastion of feminism that is Ms. Magazine. And what do I find on page 3? The following quote from somebody called Margaret Cho: “You criticize a woman’s body – and young girls see it, you murder us all inside. You are responsible for our slow genocide.”
The quote appears in a section called “Lest We Forget” and there is no indication that it’s meant to be facetious.
Just observe how the quote insists that it’s a woman’s body – not her intellect, her strength, her career, her education or her finances, but specifically, the body – that shouldn’t be criticized. What can we deduce from that? A woman is her body and absolutely nothing else. You express a criticism of that body, and you have destroyed the woman because there is nothing else to her. Just her figure. What an incredibly feminist approach.
I’m glad that “feminists” of this caliber haven’t managed to convince me that all there is to me is my body. Otherwise, I would have already killed myself against a wall after reading the messages of all the trolls who decided to reveal to me the fascinating news that I’m fat.
I’ve got to wonder, why would anybody give others so much power over her life by reacting to comments about her body like they really have genocidal value? So somebody doesn’t like your body. Unless you are specifically interested in having sex with that person, why would you even care?
Clarissa's Blog 
//you murder us all inside.
//You are responsible for our slow genocide
Unintentional rhyme like in a poem works against the writer’s goal in this case. (This is an objective observation, without any connection to my views on the issue.)
I don’t like to see words like genocide used this way. No matter what the issue is slaughterhouses for cattle, dogs in shelters or psychological harassment of people.
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This is what reading poetry does for you: you develop a very keen feeling for language. Good for you! I did not spot that.
I also agree on the careless use of the word “genocide.”.
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Margaret Cho is a comedian, and a very good one.
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Yeah, I’m calling Poe’s Law on this one.
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What’s Poe’s Law?
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“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody fundamentalism in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.” Basically, it’s difficult to tell the difference between somebody mocking an extremist or ridiculous position and the real thing.
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Oh, so the statement was facetious! This is the curse of an autistic: I can never gauge when people are being purposefully funny. Several times I have laughed out loud at professional meetings, only to discover that, to my horror, the speaker was being serious.
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A very refreshing look at the society we live in. Have you ever lived in baltimore? Or worked in fairfax, va? I think we may know each other.
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Yes, I have lived in Baltimore. But I’ve never been to Fairfax.
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What a Drama Queen. 😉
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I know it’s off topic, but I just can’t stop myself. A bit of info concerning Pussy Riot :
“Moscow city court has prolonged the arrest of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich, who are thought to be the members of the Pussy Riot punk band. They will be remain in jail till June 24, RIA Novosti reported.”
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Ah, thanks for the update. There has been so much brouhaha that they will be jailed for 7 years.
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Oh so they aren’t going to get a free pass on vandalizing religious grounds because they are women and mothers? Great I can’t wait to see how this can be spun into more “patriarchal oppression”….
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Well this same Margaret Cho also once said during one of her stand up specials something to the effect of (I don’t recall if they are the exact words), “If you aren’t a feminist you just fucking kill yourself.”
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I hate this trend:
Call a woman fat? You’ve just committed “genocide”.
Call a woman a dyke? That’s “verbal violence.”
Call a woman a slut? Now you’re guilty of “emotional rape”.
It is sickening to see feminists take a word that has a horrific meaning, and use it to describe a trivial incident.
(I’m sure all political movements do this, but feminism is the movement I read the most about.)
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Not to mention the storm in a teacup about the Swedish cake.
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What happened to the cake?
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http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1840544/pg1
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OK, I saw the pictures. I need to battle gag reflex now. Ay yay yay yay. Have the Swedes gone massively nuts?
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Not really. It was a cultural event where people had to make cake installations (in the sense of being art pieces of sculptures) and this “African Swede” made on to signify female genital mutilation. The cultural minister was invited to cut the cake, which she seems to have done with an attitude of gay abandon that showed she had no awareness that she was, in a sense, being set up. Now, she is being called on to resign for her cultural insensitivity.
This is just one more reason why I hate identity politics and its insidious tactics of producing humiliation and guilt.
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I can’t imagine what it would take for me to stay in the same room with such a cake, let alone cut it up. That minister is a very disturbed person and everybody else who was there is, too. This isn’t about identity politics. This is about psychological issues.
Would you want to eat something like that? It’s like those vulva cupcakes that some people were gushing about. I still want to vomit every time I think of them.
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No, I found it very mentally disturbing, looking at the video for a few seconds. But you are wrong that this is not about identity politics. It was an ambush.
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Nobody forced her to participate, did they? She surely could have walked away or claimed she was diabetic.
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She made an error of judgment. Did you imagine I was defending her when I described how identity politics works? I’m not taking sides.
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And bear in mind that this is coming from people who regularly point out the misuse of the word rape. I recently recall seeing a post on a feminist site about how saying you got raped by the IRS is wrong. But then stuff like this passes?
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Technically the IRS can rape you, especially when the definition used is this.
Rape: Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
At least it certainly can feel like that.
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As a disfigured woman who has spent a lifetime being insulted about my body, I definitely can relate to Margaret Cho’s overstatements. When it’s everyone else vs me, a big bad attitude and a retort with mass, weight, and an edge like a razor blade are necessary to silence the opposition, if only for a moment. She may not be politically correct, but I have to admire a woman who carries concealed weapons between her teeth and between her ears.
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