Quote: Virginie Despentes

"What, in fact, is required of a real man? The repression of emotions and the silencing of sensitivity. Being ashamed of gentleness or vulnerability. Leaving childhood brutally and definitively behind: overgrown boys get bad press. Neurosis about the size of his dick. Being able to make women come without their knowing or being willing to share what makes them feel good. Not showing weakness. Gagging his sensuality. Dressing in dull colors, always wearing the same pair of drab shoes, not having fun with his hair, not wearing too much jewellery, or any make-up. Always having to make the first move. Without the slightest sexual education to improve his orgasm. Not knowing how to ask for help. Having to play brave, even while being a coward. Valuing strength, whatever his personality. Displaying aggression. Limited access to fatherhood. Being a success, so he can seduce the best women. Fearing his homosexuality, since real men must never be penetrated. Not playing with dolls when he was a kid, having to make do with little cars and ugly plastic guns. Not taking care of his body. Subjecting himself to the brutality of other men without complaint. Knowing how to defend himself, even if he is a sweet person. Being cut off from his femininity, just as women abandon their masculinity, not in response to situation or personality but because society demands it. Thus ensuring that women continue to provide children for war, and men continue to be willing to get themselves killed to protect the interests of three or four short-sighted idiots."


"Unless we step into the uncharted territory of the gender revolution, we know exactly where we will be regressing. An all-powerful State that infantilises us, interferes in all our decisions for our own good and—under the pretext of protecting us—keeps us in a childish state of ignorance, fear of punishment and exclusion. The special treatment until now reserved for women, with shame as the primary tool for ensuring their isolation, passivity and lack of protest, could now be extended to all. To understand the mechanics of how women have been made to feel inferior, and induced to willingly maintain themselves in this state, is to understand how the entire population is kept under control. Capitalism is an egalitarian religion, in the sense that it demands general submission, making everyone feel trapped—as all women are." --Virginie Despentes, from King Kong Theory, tr. Stéphanie Benson, London: Serpent's Tail, 2009, pp. 20-21.