A Yawn and a Hose

[A male friend wrote a review about a book; he asked me to read the review and let him know what I thought. In his review he cited these quotations from the book, which was written by a woman: 

"As symbols go, the phallus is a yawn. Tubes that point and shoot and there you have it." 

"A phallus doesn't give you much to play with, metaphorically, and it doesn't lend itself to multiple interpretations. A hose is a hose is a hose is a hose."

He didn't finish the book, finding the writing to be too underscored by misandry. Below is my response to him. I am sharing this here because I thought it was a good example of banter about feminism. The author's name, the book's title, nor the friend's name were used to maintain anonymity.]


I think perhaps you took the author's words a bit too close to heart. Perhaps, as a woman, after years of being told explicitly and implicitly that I must be inferior, it is easier for me to allow a sentence or two insulting the metaphoric value of my genitals to just meander past me, unacknowledged. But for a man, it makes sense that it would be a more difficult feat to not put up a fight with a criticism of your prized phallus--for while the man, generally speaking, tends to identify himself with and in some cases perhaps even define himself by his cock, the woman does not rely solely on her vagina to define or identify her womanhood. However, I generalize; I know that this may just be my humble opinion, because I know that at my unripe stage of life I have not quite been able to grasp the concept of gender. But I do blame that partially on the fact that there are such rigid definitions of "man" and "woman" served to us on rusty tin platters from every angle, that indeed force the man to think that he is naught without his penis and the woman to believe that her physical appeal is the be all and end all of her worth. I have de-conditioned myself of the latter part of that sentence, and I do not care if my hair makes me "look like a lesbian" or that I really should wear makeup, or put on a real bra, etcetera etcetera et-fucking-cetera. All of it is nonsense. But I digress ever so slightly. The woman is taught that she must scrutinize every part of herself and fix what is imperfect and make herself perfect, no matter the physical, emotional, or fiscal cost. The man, however, is taught only to scrutinize his penis, and yes, he may be poked fun at for its size or for inopportune erections, but there is really nothing to be done to "fix" these "imperfections." 

I wholeheartedly believe that, considering the enormous hardship it is to be a woman in today's society--hell, in any day's society--from having to concern oneself with one's appearance, and fearing that one may be raped simply for BEING on a street at a certain angle of the Earth's rotation around the Sun, and striving to be considered for the quality of her mind rather than the size of her breasts, and so on and on and on, the author has every right to be snarky from time to time.

I think, and correct me if am wrong, you abandoned the book far too soon after dubbing it misandrist (ha! this derivative of "misandry" isn't even considered a word! "Misogyny" finds its roots in the 17th century, while "misandry" only came into existence in the 1940s) at times, but if every woman abandoned everything that was misogynistic, she would be left with nothing but a white room and perhaps a few pillows and a box of raisins.