Psychic Self-Mutilation

 

 

 

"Beads"

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed
Brushstroke

“Silence is present everywhere under patriarchy, though it requires different silences from men than from women. You can imagine the policing of gender as the creation of reciprocal silences, and you can begin to recognise male silence as a tradeoff for power and membership. No one ever put it better than bell hooks, who said: “The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.” That is, patriarchy requires that men silence themselves first...... .... This means learning not only be to silent to others but also to themselves, about aspects of their inner life and self. Reading hook’s passage, I was chilled, as though I suddenly understood that this is the plot of a horror movie or a zombie movie. The deadened seek out the living to exterminate feeling, either by making their targets join them in numbness or by intimidating or assaulting them into silence. In the landscape of silence, the three realms might be silence imposed from within; silence imposed from without; and silence that exists around what has not yet been named, recognised, described, or admitted. But they are not distinct; they feed each other; and what is unsayable becomes unknowable and vice versa, until something breaks.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions ~ quote via Alive On All Channels ~