The girls’ city does not exist. Girls are born into a no place in particular that is owned by men; it matters little where or how; they die there in the nothing as they die everywhere that has men; it matters not where, nor how. They have never had a city of their own; the girls have no ruins; they have no histories to forget; there is no language whose words they must unlearn; the girls have no orations trailing off their lips;
the girls have no official records to burn: they have no location but the nothing location of everywhere that is with the men.
The girls’ city is a vacant city, in that it does not exist, and home is a city on its knees.
The look that the girls turn on the city is a look of lust; it expresses her dreams of possession of herself. The men know this very well; when their glances meet the man ascertains of the girl bitterly, always on the defensive, “The girls would like a city for themselves.” It is true, for there is no girl who does not dream at least once of freely walking down a street.
The world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are enforced by violence. The violent men are the go-betweens, the spokesmen of the other men; they speak for them in the language of force. They are the bringers of the placelessness into the minds of those who are not men.
The men’s city is strongly built, made of property and force and women. It is a brightly lit place; it swallows all the leavings of girls’ and women’s bodies and hours, unseen, unknown, and hardly considered. The men’s home is an easygoing home. The men’s home is a city of men and the people who are not men who do things for them and who never have a city called ours.