No, I didn't say I was surprised, and I certainly can't blame her for her hate-on. (And I'll have reread the castration imagery in light of all the psychoanalysis I've just gotten, but there's something intuitive going on there, since loss of privilege really is experienced as a sort of castration.) But even if it's not a piercing weapon, there's still something surprisingly phallic in the violence of the imagery. . . .