The Return of the Blog

So it's been a long time since I have written, ranted, verbally vomited, chronicled, argued or just typed on this page. A lot has happened in my life (as hopefully is the case for everyone as time passes), but I am drawn back to this forum because of an adventure I am going to undertake. I recently read "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk. As expected, I had mixed feelings about both the book and the author. I knew this would be the case going into reading that book, but I figured I couldn't speak badly about it until I actually subjected myself to it. However, I think what struck me most was how desensitized I became by the culmination of the story. Throughout the book women are degraded, demeaned, disregarded, etc. They are treated as empty characters put in the book solely to give the main character someone to misuse. But by the end of the book, I wasn't even remotely shocked by his treatment of female characters. I had become accustomed to it.

This disgusted me. I was disgusted with myself. But at the same time, I was amazed. If by the end of this one 250 "novel" I had become so desensitized to blatant and disgusting sexism, how affected am I by it every day? While trying to answer this question, I remembered something I had read in an Inga Muscio book once (not positive if it was "Cunt" or "Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil). Inga experimented on herself. Now, the details are fuzzy because it's been years since I read this, but I remember that she removed male voices from her life (not in all aspects, but she only read books by women, listened to music by women, read news articles written by women, etc). I am going at attempt to do the same.

In no way am I ambitious enough to embark on a year-long journey. So, I am going to start with a week and see where it takes me. Now, I am not naive. I know that there will be some times that it will be impossible to do this. There are times I will have to read things for work written by men. I have no control over the music we listen to at work. When in the presence of a large group of friends, I will explain what I am doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they will accept and respect. I will document those situations. I also want to chronicle the other bumps along the road: How hard will it be to get my daily news? Is it fair to not read the works of feminist men? Will the way I perceive the world change? Will I feel empowered? Strengthened? Incomplete? How will this entire process affect me?

Let's see how it goes!