Comic Strip: “Hugh wasn't a boy, but a man: The Protective Violence of the Violated” featuring Pinky

Comic: “Hugh wasn't a boy, but a man: The Protective Violence of the Violated” featuring Pinky

I think it’s important to state that though this piece contains violence, it does so only as a mode of emotional communication, not as my personal solution to the problem of male supremacy. I release my feelings in my art, particularly the anger of living in a world that treats me and other women and girls as second-class citizens.

Violence has never been my strategy though I also question the possibility of pacifism under male supremacy. I don’t come from a militant ideology but I also understand that women have many different tactics to dismantle misogyny and I respect that no one can definitively say which is the path to freedom. Most likely it will take a range of tactics. I know the freedom fighters against racial supremacy were pushed to use protective violence routinely, but this movement was also male-dominated. The sanitized version of Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. is meant to shroud the violence. But it was there whether we chose to look or not. So what do we do with this information? We want peace, but men want violence. How do we proceed against such a force of violent power & control?

I don’t know, but I’m thankful for the radical feminists that are sharing divergent viewpoints and analysis. By building the feminist community we can form stronger think tanks to find strategies that are realistic, effective, and contain a diversity of thought. The following women have been vital sources in my journey of consciousness-raising:

• @farida.d.author

• @female.supremacist

• @nymphemme80s

• @prowomyn

• @albanian.radfem

• @radfemw1tch

• @sistaseparatist

• @unapologeticallyfeminists

  
  

✍️ Journal Reflection Prompts:

• Have you ever had to use protective violence, only to be gaslit into believing you were the problem (protective violence is violence in response to someone using violence against you)?

• Under the cycle of violence that male supremacy has built, is it possible to break free without the use of violence?

• Do you allow yourself to feel your anger?

• Do you allow yourself to cry?

• Do you analyze your feelings OR do you actually feel them?

Additional Artist Notes: This is the first comic strip in a series I am working on:) Pinky is just one of the many characters that you will meet. I still don’t know the name of the comic so I’m creating titles for each strip . Like all artists, I have a shit-ton of ideas in my head but getting them onto paper is always a challenge. I have half-baked essays, comic strips, book chapters, poems, paintings, and so on I’m trying to complete. I’m pushing myself to stay focused on one project (as much as possible) so that I can complete my first comic book. I hope to complete a strip every 2 months at a minimum, culminating in a full story that introduces all the characters I would like to create. I hope to be able to compile all the strips into one comic book at the end of this process. And with time I want to create more comic books (and maybe finish some of those other half-baked projects). Thanks for joining me in this journey of creating a finished comic book.