The Congruous Vacuum

A response to "Guerilla Girls on Tour"

I've been going to lectures on Tuesday nights while my wife is in class. The weird thing is that the older I get, the more I disagree with everything, even stuff I would normally agree with. ( Once I was told that my "liberal notions" were just part of being "young", and that I will become more "conservative" as I get older... Well maybe that line works on babyboomers who just get stupider and more selfish year after year, while I have just watched everything get shitty-er and shitty-er. Sorry, that I just get more angry as I get older and realize this whole Cold War was a gigantic bullshit story for the benefit US and Russian arms suppliers and the respective politicians who played along. )

For instance two weeks ago I went and saw "Guerilla Girls on Tour." Let start by saying these are not the original Guerilla Girls. This is a separate group of theatre professionals who go on tour "changing the world, one sexist city at a time." This was a show by two "Guerilla Girls" who instead of wearing the trademark anonymous gorilla mask, substituted blond wigs and ape-ish face-pieces that covered the eyes and nose. Plus they wore white T-shirts and boardshorts to dress "Hawaiian", the effect was of a beach blanket troglodytes movie. They acknowledged how Honolulu, happened to disprove there statistical arguments. The one calling herself Julia Child did the WORST impression, making Ms. Child sound like a drunken Foghorn Leghorn. But also, the writing was sooo bad, that they themselves exemplify the false argument/notion that women aren't good playwrights. The audience was funnier than the performers! The flier for this had a headline, "Feminism Is Funny." No. It wasn't. Lastly, during the highlight of the audience participation portion of the show, they ask, "Who here believes in equal pay for equal work?" And everyone raises their hands. "You are all feminists!" Well... I disagree.

No one in that room believes in equal pay for equal work. I doubt most reading this would either. Why else do you go to college (except for lofty notions of education and knowledge) but so that your 40 hours a week gets you 40k + salary instead of the 18k you might make at minimum wage? Huh? Maybe we like to humor the illusion that our desk job is actually more work than following behind a garbage truck, selling fast food, or cold calling customer after customer, but it's not true. Most people don't want those jobs because it is a great deal more work for little pay. So Feminists and ACLU members what are you fighting for? For your own piece of an inherently flawed system. It's a system based on discrimination. Everyone of us get discriminated everyday. By our appearance, our language, our economic status. Whose outlawing that? No one is trying to get rid of the "buddy" system, or tipping. I don't see anyone saying fashion is immoral. In most states you can't hire or fire people based on gender, race or religion, but you can on almost any other reason you can think of. So what's the point? If we the discriminated, discriminate the discriminations we are subjected to, we'll fix the system? It may just be me, but I don't think it's going work. It takes something more revolutionary. And Guerilla Girls, you aren't it.

TTFN,

-shakabusatsu