Am reading #TheBeautifulAndDamned, F Scott Fitzgerald. I'm only part-way thru it, just beginning Book Two this morn. My early pleasure at FSF's clever language has been marred many times by my shock at his overtly misogynistic prolly, sexist defo, tones. Women are constantly "stupid", "dull", "fat", "breeders", otherwise objects of lust & for conquest, but never as respectful equals.
There's been many earlier times i was tempted to toot quotes illustrating my preceding critique, but this morning i found a new low.
The man had had the hardest blow of his life. He knew at last what he wanted, but in finding it out it seemed that he had put it forever beyond his grasp. He reached home in misery, dropped into an armchair without even removing his overcoat, and sat there for over an hour, his mind racing the paths of fruitless and wretched self-absorption. She had sent him away! That was the reiterated burden of his despair. Instead of seizing the girl and holding her by sheer strength until she became passive to his desire, instead of beating down her will by the force of his own, he had walked, defeated and powerless, from her door, with the corners of his mouth drooping and what force there might have been in his grief and rage hidden behind the manner of a whipped schoolboy. At one minute she had liked him tremendously—ah, she had nearly loved him. In the next he had become a thing of indifference to her, an insolent and efficiently humiliated man.
He had no great self-reproach—some, of course, but there were other things dominant in him now, far more urgent. He was not so much in love with Gloria as mad for her. Unless he could have her near him again, kiss her, hold her close and acquiescent, he wanted nothing more from life. By her three minutes of utter unwavering indifference the girl had lifted herself from a high but somehow casual position in his mind, to be instead his complete preoccupation. However much his wild thoughts varied between a passionate desire for her kisses and an equally passionate craving to hurt and mar her, the residue of his mind craved in finer fashion to possess the triumphant soul that had shone through those three minutes. She was beautiful—but especially she was without mercy. He must own that strength that could send him away.
This was written in 1922. Today we have epidemics of entitled dickswingers believing women are their property do do with as they wish, including rape, beat, murder. It seems that popular culture has been normalising this for far longer than i'd realised.
Repugnant.
Now wondering if i should finish this book, & indeed whether to read the other FSF's on my tablet.
Worst of all, how can i continue to hold Gatsby in such high regard?
#FScottFitzgerald #FsckRWNJs #FsckThePatriarchy #FsckMisogynists #FsckSexists 
#Feminism #WomensRights #WomensRepresentation #misogyny #sexism #DomesticViolence #DieDickswingersDie #WomanNeedsManLikeFishNeedsBicycle #MaleViolence #WomensSafety
Yeah, wot r the chances, right? 
