Tales from the Fruit Basket

A quick disclaimer before I write this: The instances talked about by me are representative of a variety of people, who’s rights, privacy, and lives are their own. As such while the conditions and incidents will be real, the individuals themselves will be vague characters rather then specific individuals.

When in a confrontational frame of mind, I’m often accused of women-hating for my frequent anti-feminist statements. My usual response of “It’s okay to dislike an ideology, because feminism doesn’t speak for all women (it just wishes it did).” May not always be appropriate. So I occasionally just make some anomalous statement about despising everyone equally, including myself, no special favours here!

This attitude was sadly galvanised by working in psychology and mental health, take for example the case of the delightful Cauliflower:

Cauliflower has serious psychological problems, depression, self-injury, and learning disabilities. He also suffers from body dysphoria, believing he is so flawed as to be unlovable. Mr Cauliflower has good days and bad days, but his worst days are invariably when he has visited his mother and/or sister. Who financially exploit the small money he gets from the government, and when they feel he is doing too well, tell him no woman would ever want him because his penis is too small. You see, he’s not easy to manipulate when he is independent, so it’s in their interests to crush his self-esteem. Mr Cauliflower believes their comments about his penis because they’ve sexually taken advantage of him in the past under the guise of “love”, but of course will never be prosecuted for it because Mr Cauliflower loves them (despite their abuse) and so would never testify against them in court. Even if he did, it is a he-said she-said argument, that would cause even more stress for somebody who has been known to suffer from suicidal depression.

Mr Cauliflower has his hobbies, he works (such as he can) three days out the week in simple jobs that pay very poorly, he’s frequently absent from them. He’s very conversational and loves talking just for talking sake, and will happily spend hours just discussing different things that interest him. Every day is a struggle for him to stay motivated, and to take control of his life, but the sad thing is when it starts to happen, he is soon dragged down again by the people who exploit him, and they will always continue to get away with it.

Now take for example young Mr Eggplant. Mr Eggplant is still very young, and was taken out of his mother’s care in his mid-teens after spending an entire childhood as a victim of Munchausen’s by proxy with a rather sick twist. His mother told him that the only way to get better was to comply with her sexual demands. The reason he spent so much time being abused is we’re often taught that a sexual deviant wears a male face, and women simply don’t do that kind of thing. Young Mr Eggplant now struggles with ADHD and mild Autism, it’s doubtful he’ll ever really understand emotional stability most people do, and even more unlikely that he’ll ever have any kind of normal relationships. He is for all intents and purposes “Ruined.” He often attacks the people who try to help him out of frustration and inability to control his volatile feelings. He often cries whenever people talk about mothers.

So why talk about these people?

Well for a start, I carry these stories around with me, and it’s nice to put them down on paper for my own piece of mind. Often people turn blind eyes to stories that don’t fit their narrative, or that contain things that are so distasteful we don’t want to believe they exist.
The reason I make very disparaging remarks about certain aspects of feminism because it makes money casting women as the perpetual victims and men as the perpetual criminals/abusers/monster. When in reality, such behaviour is not gendered at all. Human minds are just as sick or brilliant regardless of the chromosomes that made them, and the first rule of a good psychologist is to make every effort you can to see past “everyone knows” or “That’s not right” or “I’m sure I heard” and stick to the facts that you see, doing everything you can to eliminate your own bias and prejudice. Any study that starts with a narrative or ideology and sets out to prove it, isn’t a science, it’s a religion.
When I see people actively re-enforce prejudice, and make money from doing so while claiming to be the victims. It fills me with sorrow and pity for people like Mr Califlour and Young Mr Eggplant, because I know more people right now are being turned into them, and nobody is looking, because nobody wants to see. And the self-titled “Champions of Equality” are making sure eyes are fixed elsewhere.