Man Hating Psycho

You should be scared

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Aldi supermarket, south London, 6pm last winter

I couldn't decide between red Thai salmon or lime and chilli salmon. Maybe I should get the smoked honey salmon flakes? I went into a daydream of fish dinners, mapping out my meals in my head. It was completely my fault; in my daydream I didn’t consider I was completely standing in the way of the fish section, blocking it for other customers. “Oh sorry!” I exclaimed when I turned around and saw a man in his fifties, red in the face from alcohol, overweight and short, glaring at me. “Silly cow,” he grunted loudly and the stench of Stella Artois oozed out of his mouth. 

“Your mum is a silly cow,” I said automatically, and I saw the eyes of onlookers glance up as subtly as they could muster. The words vomited out of me as pure instinct, I’m sure his mum was not a silly cow and besides, what a childish retort of me to have made. But it just came out because sorry LOL, who does he think he is? I had already apologised, calm down innit, no need for insults really.

“You what?” his face got redder, so I cleared my throat, best RP English now. “Your mother *I paused for effect* is a silly cow.” Ngl, I walked away then cos I was like shit, I’ve taken this too far and I kinda like my face init. The man went mad though, following me around the store doing the wanking motion with his hand, smiling in absolute sinister fury. I carried on with my shop as usual and pretended he didn’t exist and so now he looked insane, not me. That made him angrier for sure.

What was that about, though? Who did he think he was? Did he see a small Asian lady and decide he could just say whatever he wanted because I’d be too timid to say anything back? Not today, Satan. 

I got to the till and the lady serving me asked with gentle but real concern, “are you okay?” and that was it, I cried. Slander me all day and I may laugh - but show real compassion, care and/or empathy and I’ll lose it. Two women wearing worried expressions approached me as I was leaving the store - they said they could see through the window that the man was looking around the car park, as if he was trying to spot me. “Please, let us give you a lift home,” they said. They really thought this man was going to kill me lmao! (why am I laughing?) I considered the ride home but I thought taking a lift from a stranger because I was concerned about being attacked by another stranger probably wasn’t a good idea. So they stood at the bus stop with me until I got on the bus home, and I scanned the road thoroughly when I got off to make sure nobody had followed me home. It was unlikely I told myself - crazy in fact - but just in case. 

*

There was a scene in the TV show ‘Fleabag’ where Kristin Scott Thomas says:

“Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny! Period pains, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t.

“They have to seek it out, they invent all these gods and demons and things just so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby.

“We have it all going on in here - inside -  we have pain on a cycle for years and years and years and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes, the f***ing menopause comes, and it is the most wonderful f***ing thing in the world.”

Isn’t that just it, though? 

Men enact violence, but women are violence embodied, really - despite how beautiful womanhood is - and that isn’t our choice. I am violence in a small soft shell. The violence occurs monthly. We are born to endure pain so we look to heal everything externally, because there’s nothing we can do about the pain that’s born within us. Women, in large part, are natural healers because we have no choice.

If a woman is angry she’s a ‘psycho’. If a man is angry, well… he’s just a man, and all is forgiven.

*

I’ve fought men before. In the early noughties (a wild time for me m8) a guy was very rude to me in a shop and attempted to be intimidating, so I picked up a banana on the shelf and threw it at him. (Let’s bear in mind now that I was barely 18 at the time, thnx!) He chased me out of the shop and we tussled on the road under the Croydon flyover; I remember gripping onto his t-shirt for dear life to keep him at arm's length so he couldn’t hit me. We spun around and around like we were dancing, and when people intervened and I finally let go of him I noticed I’d ripped his t-shirt from the neck to the navel. The police came and said if I wanted to press charges I would also have to come in to the station because man, look at his t-shirt. So I said don’t worry about it. 

*

Kiranjit in 1992

Do you remember that film ‘Provoked’? It came out in 2006 and OMG LOL, It starred Aishwarya Rai and… STEVE MCFADDEN LMFAO. What was Phil Mitchell doing in a movie with the queen of Bollywood, pls. 

‘Provoked’ was a movie based on a real woman, an Indian woman called Kiranjit Ahluwalia (above) who lived in England with her husband, who had subjected her to physical, sexual and psychological abuse for over a decade. One day he threatened to scar her with a hot poker. Understandably slightly out of her mind from anxiety and fear at this stage, she set fire to him while he was asleep… and he died. She was sentenced to life in prison in 1989 when the Southall Black Sisters caught wind of the case and fought for her retrial. She was released three years later in 1992. 

*

Valerie Solanas

Valerie Solanas, radical feminist and author of the SCUM Manifesto - which called for the establishment of a utopian society of women - tried to murder Andy Warhol in 1968, 19 years before his death. 

A psych major and aspiring writer, Valerie moved to NYC after being charmed by the allure of the Bohemian artiste lifestyle that was buzzing in the city at the time. She eventually got her way into the Factory, the legendary loft space for Warhol and his fellow creatives, and pitched for him to produce her screenplay (which was called ‘Up Your Ass’ but you know what, let’s not go there now). He kept the screenplay and never returned it. A few things happened after that (I’ll let you go down that Google rabbit hole if you wish), and Valerie was starting to feel like men were trying to steal her ideas.  

Eventually, she went to the Factory with a gun and shot Warhol, leaving him with a ruptured stomach, liver, spleen and lungs. He survived, but he had to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life. Solanas said she shot him because “he had too much control over my life.”

*

Over 10 years ago I had a very abusive partner who looked at my cat one day and told me he’d gone ‘back home’ (he was originally south Asian) a couple of years ago and a cat tried to scratch him. So he put the cat in a bin bag and threw it in a river. He told me so casually, this thinly veiled threat as he gently scratched behind my cat's ears. At this stage I already knew what he was capable of and yes I had tried to leave, I was too scared to leave, I’d called the police more than once. I understood a threat when I heard one now. Of course, I eventually did leave, and I vowed to die before I ever let another human treat me like that again. Ain’t no one who can talk shit about my cat.

By my early twenties my rage had started to dissipate, and I surrounded myself with kick-ass women. I don’t think there is anything more inspiring than a woman - no particular type of woman, just all of them. There isn’t a woman I cannot appreciate. The cold ones, warm ones, the philosophical ones, the no-nonsense ones, the funny ones, shy ones, feisty ones, the soft ones, the sarcastic ones, the bookish ones. Nobody knows how to execute like a woman, and nobody can get shit done like a woman. An absolute fucking force of nature we are, and don’t you forget it.

I found myself in the safety of women, the camaraderie, the mutual understanding and empathy, the sharp wit, the electric intelligence, their ability to get a point across concisely without explaining something the other person already knows. I used this George Orwell quote in one of my previous newsletters - “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” That is the crux of it. The understanding between us women, oh it keeps me fucking warm and it keeps me sane and I will never be able to thank them enough for that.

Sure, I’m married to a man, but I’m still me. I value honesty - no matter the ugliness - and so does he, so we’re able to be honest and free enough to express ourselves without holding back. You already know that communication is everything. I can love my husband until death does us part and still feel that sometimes, men are predators. This is what previous life experiences have taught me, and whose fault is that? Not mine baby!

*

I remember one day a family member brought up a movie called ‘The Stoning of Soraya M’. It’s an Iranian movie about a young lady who is stoned to death by her community for being falsely accused of having an affair.

My mum’s name is similar to Soraya and so when this person brought it up as a joke, referencing her, I remember feeling it - the very casual threat laced in the joke. It’s always there, the threat of being murdered if you fall out of place, always laying under the surface, and you never know when it could pop up. I’m sure women who are murdered by their partners or family members in most cases don’t really think they’re going to get killed. It’s just a comment, he’s just angry, he’s just controlling because he cares so much, he wants what is best for me.  

I’ve been exploring my relationship with men in therapy recently, and it’s become more and more complex in my head with every session. I’ve had male and female best friends and male and female lovers, and I think that makes it all the more confusing, because we know that no one person is inherently good or bad. I’ve met female villains, and I’ve definitely been one! I just find myself fascinated with male violence in general, and how it differs from female rage. Why are men allowed to own violence? Why is it more socially acceptable? I can’t think of anything to say that puts it better than that Fleabag quote, though.  

The title of this newsletter is inspired by the book Man Hating Psycho by Iphgenia Baal. It is very good, and I suggest you read it xxx

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