Before any zine (or piece of content) hits the table of the yet to be named distro (coming to a folding table near you!), everyone involved in the distro is asked to read the materials. We have no desire to remain ignorant of what and who we are platforming. This means I’m reading a lot of new stuff; stuff that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise and I wanna talk about the stuff I read. Maybe it will help you make decisions on what to grab off our tables
Without further ado: A review of the most important zine for men to read.
“Said the Pot to the Kettle” is written by a self-described “twenty-something white male who is mostly attracted to women”; which in my experience, and after hearing others’ experiences, tends to be one of the most “problematic” demographics in the left. This, to me, is what makes this one of the most important zines. It’s written in a “language” that is careful to not trigger a backlash reaction that sometimes happens when one’s place in the world is intensely and internally scrutinized, without being coddling.
The zine opens with a charming stick figure comic playing out a silly retelling of how patriarchy came to be, before plunging into the meat.
It turns being a good comrade into a will issue and not a skill issue; you can’t claim ignorance if you’ve read this tract. Multiple topics relating to patriarchy and its effects on society are covered. Not in-depth, but with enough digging to give at least the general gist of things such as pronouns, non-binary genders, power dynamics within relationships, etc. It wouldn’t be far fetched to say that everybody has something important to glean from this.
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Read on Screens (PDF Warning): https://ia902907.us.archive.org/13/items/SaidThePotToTheKettleFeministTheoryForAnarchistMen/said_the_pot_to_the_kettle-SCREEN.pdf
Courtesy of Sprout Distro
Hard copies available to PDX comrades for free or for donation