May 09
Impact presents an extended confrontation between a sexual assault victim and her assailants, as part of an imagined slightly revised court process, in order to understand why they did what they did and, on that basis, to make a recommendation to the court regarding sentence. It does not go … as expected.
REVIEW COPIES AVAILABLE. Please inquire: ptittle7@gmail.com
Apr 30
Why more men than women will die of the COVID virus:
1. Cleanliness is a girl thing. Real men don’t wash their hands. (Certainly not several times a day.)
2. The home is the women’s cave. So unless it comes with an attached garage, real men aren’t going to stay there all day. (Certainly not all week, let alone all month …)
3. Many of the public health officials we’re hearing from are women. Real men don’t listen to women. They certainly don’t accept their advice.
4. Most men think they’re tough, so they figure they’re not going to get it. (As if toughness, rather than, oh I don’t know, a diet high in fruits and vegetables, and low in beer and cigarettes, has anything to do with immunity to viral infections.)
5. Most men are pack animals; they naturally herd together. So they’re finding this whole do-not-congregate thing really hard.
Why more women than men will die of the COVID virus:
1. The men they’re living with will get angry and frustrated (at whatever) and as a result kill them. (Because, you know, it’s their fault.)
Apr 21
So I’ve been talking with my friend about the effect on the internet (and computers in general) of the overwhelming male influence (the high percentage of male ITers, coders, what have you) and simultaneously formatting the blog-comments sections of my forthcoming novel Gender Fraud: a fiction, and I realize the ‘reply’ design (widgets?) for comments are incredibly not up to the task: a back-and-forth conversation would result in a long diagonal down-and-to-the-right stream which, after just a few exchanges, would force the replies to be squished into a one-inch column. Why didn’t they use, instead, an all-comments-on-a-subthread-are-aligned principle?
Which suggests two additional questions: Are men in general unaccustomed to extended conversational back-and-forth exchange? Is the ideal conversation for them, the imagined conversation, one in which a reply is a single blow that establishes victory, the end?
Apr 01
“I was studying political science at the time, so I had never thought about social processes like misogyny and sexism.” What? What?
(from https://narratively.com/i-was-an-angry-mens-rights-activist-now-im-a-fierce-feminist/)
Mar 18
Review copies of It Wasn’t Enough, a new novel by Peg Tittle, are now available! Please inquire: ptittle7@gmail.com
Here’s the blurb: What if one day, all of the women suddenly disappeared? Without what it is that women do, what it is that women are — what would happen?
The novel was inspired by a comment made by mariguana at feministcurrent.com (mariguana, if you’re out there, please contact me!!), so they may be especially interested in posting a review.
Here are some reviews of my previous work:
“I read [What Happened to Tom] in one sitting, less than two hours, couldn’t put it down. Fantastic allegorical examination of the gendered aspects of unwanted pregnancy. A must-read for everyone, IMO.” Jessica, goodreads
“This powerful book plays with the gender gap to throw into high relief the infuriating havoc unwanted pregnancy can wreak on a woman’s life. Once you’ve read What Happened to Tom, you’ll never forget it.” Elizabeth Greene, author of Understories and Moving
“[Exile] is an interesting novella … Thought-provoking stuff, as usual from Peg Tittle.” James M. Fisher, The Miramichi Reader
“Woh. [Sexist Shit that Pisses Me Off] is freaking awesome and I demand a sequel.” Anonymous, barnesandnoble.com
Mar 13
[Bernadette Powell, a black woman from Ithaca, New York, is now serving a 15-year-to-life sentence … because in 1978 she shot and killed her ex-husband.]
[T]he Tompkins county prosecutor … argued … that [she] had no reason to fear bodily harm from her ex-husband because although the man admittedly had committed many violent acts against her—there were hospital emergency room records and eye-witnesses to prove it—his motivation was ‘sexual’. In other words, a woman’s broken bones and broken spirit don’t count if the man who broke them had sex on his mind.” (emphasis mine)
from “Family Matters,” Ann Jones
Mar 13
…[T] male-dominated gay liberation movement never really grasped how homophobia is rooted in the woman hating that is a fixture of male supremacy. Quite simply, the male homosexual is stigmatized because he is perceived to participate in the degraded status of the female …
…
The system of male supremacy requires gender polarity—with real men as different from real women as they can be …
…
The threat of homophobic insult or attack not only keeps men aimed at women as their appropriate sexual prey; it also keeps men ‘real men’.
…
The political reality of the gender hierarchy in male supremacy requires that we make it resonate through our nerves, flesh, and vascular system just as often as we can. We are supposed to respond orgasmically to power and powerlessness, to violence and violatedness; our sexuality is supposed to be inhabited by a reverence for supremacy, for unjust power over and against other human life. We are not supposed to experience any other erotic possibility; we are not supposed to glimpse eroticized justice. … [Y]ou come to the point where you have to impose hierarchy on ever sex act you attempt—otherwise it doesn’t feel like sex.
from “You Can’t Fight Homophobia and Protect the Pornographers at the Same Time—An Analysis of What Went Wrong in Hardwick,” John Stoltenberg
Mar 10
How many men are addicted to porn? We don’t know. There are no visible symptoms. No, that’s not true. The visible symptoms are what we call normal behaviour.
Mar 10
I am ashamed to be male.
We turn everything into a weapon.
We are obsessed with competing, with being better than not our previous selves, but others.
We enjoy hurting. We tear the legs off flies, we put firecrackers into dogs’ mouths, we attach electrodes to people’s genitalia.
We are unable to experience pleasure without conquest.
We fell entitled, to everything.
We do not think of the consequences of our actions.
We expect others to clean up after us, to fix the things we break, to sweep up our messes, the wipe away our smudges, to pick up the things we just toss wherever we like …
Half the human species is afraid of me.
They don’t walk at night because of me.
They don’t go out alone because of me.
They can never enjoy the sunset, the night, the stars in solitude because of me.
They have to watch their drinks at bars because of me.
They are ever vigilant in public — on sidewalks, in subway stations — because of me.
Children are wary of every stranger’s help, every stranger’s generosity, every stranger’s kindness because of me.
(Men, additions?)
Mar 10
A woman was raped. A man raped a woman.
He got her pregnant. She made him a father.
Submit your additions via comment.
