I really shouldn’t take the time to post today, but I’ve got to clear some of these links off my desktop! Some of them I’ve lost the source of; my apologizes to anyone who I should have hat-tipped but didn’t.
By the way, if there are any links you’d like to post, or anything you’d like to discuss, that doesn’t fit into the other threads on “Alas,” then feel free to post it in the comments here.
In no particular order:
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Ex-Gay Watch has some interesting information about the swell folks behind Defend Maryland Marriage (who I posted about yesterday).
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Hey, cool, Jill at Third Wave Agenda just called “Alas” one of her favorite blogs. Thanks, Jill! The only problem is, now adding Third Wave Agenda to the “Alas” blogroll may look like payback for flattery, when actually I’ve been meaning to add it since I first noticed it a couple of days ago. Well-reasoned and passionate – a recipe for kick-ass feminist blogging. I recommend that y’all check Jill’s blog out.
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A mini-debate between me and Elizabeth Marquardt at Family Scholars Blog about her famous “hooking up” study.
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Heart, who is like me a veteran of the Ms Boards, has been posting to disagree with me and other skeptics regarding the “become a prostitute or lose unemployment benefits” story on this “Alas” thread. It’s an interesting discussion. There’s also some discussion of it on Heart’s website (Note: Heart’s website is women-only. Any male “Alas” poster who posts on Heart’s website will no longer be welcome to post on “Alas”).
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RadGeek argues, persuasively, that the Founding Fathers did so intend a separation between church and state.
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Natalie at Philobiblon discusses “the school slut” and the book Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut by Emily White.
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Bouncing off a comment Kip left on “Alas,” Pinko Feminist Hellcat discusses classism and “personal responsibility.”
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A good Ellen Goodman article points out that finding “common ground” in the abortion debate, as the mainstream presents it, usually means pro-choicers giving up on our principles in exchange for no compromise at all from pro-lifers. Via Jill at Third Wave Agenda, who adds good comments as well.
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Amanda at Mouse Words argues that porn is not inherently degrading to women (although many specific examples of porn are). I pretty much agree with Amanda’s views, although I do think some kinds of porn – rape porn and child porn, specifically – should be censored. (I’m not assuming that Amanda disagrees with me on that).
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In the news: “A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation’s driving laws.” And whether or not people should get married young, I’d add. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found this story – sorry, whoever I’m not crediting!)
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I’m planning to order my next batch of checks from these people. I’m torn between the variety pack, the anatomical theme, and the insect theme.
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College paper article about a recent bell hooks lecture
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The Bush administration has pressured PBS into pulling an episode of “Postcards from Buster,” because the episode included some children whose parents are lesbians. The article describes some past episodes of the series: “One episode featured a family with five children, living in a trailer in Virginia, all sharing one room. In another, Buster visits a Mormon family in Utah. He has dropped in on fundamentalist Christians and Muslims as well as American Indians and Hmong. He has shown the lives of children who have only one parent, and those who live with grandparents.” So apparently queers, and queers alone, are the only people Bush considers beyond the pale to show as part of a family on TV. Via Jack Bog’s blog.
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Basic Rights Oregon is suing to prevent Measure 36 – the voter-approved Constitutional Amendment preventing Oregon from recognizing same-sex marriages – from being put into the Oregon Constitution. I’ll be blogging more about this in the future, but for now I’m posting it here to preserve the link.
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Another terrific feminist blog added to the blogroll: Pseudo-Adrienne’s Liberal-Feminist Bias.
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The New York Times describes some of the ways folks in Chile preserved their freedom before divorce was legalized last week: “The most creative schemes involved civil annulment, which required the separating couple to persuade a court that the original marriage had not met legal requirements. So marrying couples frequently left an escape hatch, in case things didn’t work out. Witnesses to a wedding, for example, would sometimes deliberately misspell their names or give an incorrect address. Or a couple might marry in a jurisdiction in which neither lived. More than 5,000 annulments were granted annually; the beneficiaries included President Ricardo Lagos.”
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A CLASP policy brief (pdf file) sums up the social science research regarding if married parents are really better for kids. (Short summary: Yes, kids of married parents tend to have better outcomes, but not 100% of the time, and there are other essential factors too). Both this and the previous link were via Family Scholars Blog, by the way.
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Another totally excellent Ornicus post defending hate crime laws. He harps on something that always bugs me – 90% of hate crime law critics clearly have no idea what hate crime laws are or how they work.
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Jeremy Wagstaff provides an interesting statistic on spam email: “The index goes back to November 2002, with a value of 66.67 — i.e. about 67 spam messages for every 100 valid emails. Now the index is at 782.12. That’s 800 spam messages for every 100 valid ones.” Hat tip: Kip.
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Damnum Absque Injuria, an anti-feminist blogger, reviews the “male privilege checklist.” What a shock – he don’t like it.
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This student’s paper on the Morning After Pill is good reading, especially if you’re looking for a basic summary of the scientific issues involved.
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Someone on a men’s rights forum suggested this link as a one-stop summary of what men’s rights activists are complaining about. So, in case you were wondering…
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This pamphlet written by Mary Schweitzer in the run-up to the 2004 election is still very worth reading, especially for her thoughts on the economic situation in the US. (Mary Schweitzer wrote this recent “Alas” guest post).
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Very interesting debate about affirmative action and black law students.
Ah… the desktop looks much cleaner now.
Argh, I am going to get fired. Heh.
Quickly:
I think that I’m hearing that most het women are abused by their partners. Maybe you think that “abuse”? is the wrong word, but what I see in Alpert’s excerpt is mental & emotional abuse.
Well, I think I said most het women experience something like what Alpert describes at some point. And yes, I believe what she describes is abuse.
My question is, how does seperatism help to stop this?
Well, for the woman who is a separatist, she never has to experience this kind of intimate, partner abuse at the hands of men again– ever. It ends that problem entirely for her.
Then heteronormativity, heteropatriarchy, is eroded, deconstructed, by separatism, this notion or belief that being in a heterosexual relationship is what is “normal” and what all women should want or seek, only to find that they experience what Jane Alpert describes and similar kinds of abuse.
Then, separatists give their energy, time, money, substance to women: to our businesses, musicians, writers, theorists, comedians, professionals, politicians, poets, organizations. The more powerful and independent women become, the less likely they are to enter destructive het relationships and the better able they are to leave them if they inadvertantly find themselves involved this way.
As a starting place…
(Assuming that one wishes to have both women and men co-exist in our society) Why is seperatism anything more than the modern equivalent of entering a convent as a way to keep men from ever hurting one again?
Separatism is not a retreat from society. It is a conscious choice to give one’s energy, money, goods, support, love, affection, intimacy, sex, to women only, some or all of the above, and I’m leaving a lot out.
Heart
Jake, from what I know of separatism, it’s seen as woman-identification taken to great lengths. I am woman-identified, but I’m not a separatist. Not because I think separatism is man-hating or anything like that; it’s just not for me.
From what I understand, separatism is the idea of giving your time and energy to women. It’s not about excluding men per se, it’s about including women, building safe spaces for women, and empowering women through women-focused groups, actions, and choices.
One book I read that you may find helpful is For Lesbians Only. It was interesting; I didn’t agree with many things in the book, but it was a good read. I especially liked Naomi Littlebear Morena’s essay in the anthology.
Also I think Alpert’s situation wasn’t only abuse, and it wasn’t abuse per se that made separatism a viable option for some women. It was the invisiblility and silence of women–within the home, in poltics, in business, everywhere. Even within “progressive” movements in general, which left many women disillusioned and alienated. A lot of women turned to separatism as a result of being shut down, shut up, and shut out by progressive men and the women who accepted the status quo. The reveloutionary movements of the day didn’t really have anything for women–nothing would change for us. The men in power would change, if they had their way, and there would be some superficial freedoms granted to women if they “won”, but that would be about it. Truly critical thinking about the status quo wrt gender and women’s oppression was verbotten. Our issues were seen as bourgeois and silly, our concerns were seen as trite. Women’s liberation was something we could start to think about when everyone else got liberated. Until then, we were supposed to sit quietly and follow the man, who was really no better than The Man. (You can read more about how women were regarded in reveloutionary movements in Robin Morgan’s The Demon Lover and Susan Brownmiller’s memoir In Our Time.)
(I generally try to avoid military analogies, but I’ll make an exception here because I really think there’s an active, ‘hot’ war against women happening in the United States; we’re leagues past backlash.)
On the one hand, I want my smart and feminist sisters standing next to me as we take on the severe abuses of women permeating our daily lives. We are allies and I ache for every available body to come together on the field.
On the other hand, who am I to say women who have already had their hearts and bodies put through patriarchy’s wringer should sign up for another long tour of duty? Working and talking with prostituted people, I’ve known women in their 20’s who would be retired as veterans in a recognized war after the years they spent on the front lines of men’s sex-based battles against women’s humanity.
I completely understand why some women choose to remove themselves from a culture where average men make their female bodies battlegrounds, their love of other women pornographized cliche, their voices raised in feminist protest a dartboard to target. I will miss my sisters who just want some respite from the neverending deluge of worth-less-ness the dominant culture imposes on women, but I understand.
“Also I think Alpert’s situation wasn’t only abuse, and it wasn’t abuse per se that made separatism a viable option for some women. It was the invisiblility and silence of women”“within the home, in poltics, in business, everywhere. Even within “progressive”? movements in general, which left many women disillusioned and alienated. ”
This is sort of what I meant by the male “status quo” I mentioned above. That belief by even progressive males that if women were present in the movement physically, then their voices and opinions were automatically voiced and heard. Quite the opposite was the reality. Men assumed that women’s presence was enough to ensure being represented (or they thought women’s concerns were identical to men’s), as a male presence in a radical or progressive group/movement usually ensures that his voice is heard (if it isn’t he is usually goaded into speaking, or he is kicked out). However, women’s presence in these groups was met by the male supremecy that both insisted that women’s presence was enough for representation and also insisted that “the only place for women in the … movement is prone.” No one bothered asking the women what they wanted or thought. No one thought it was a valid question.
Q Grrl,
The comparison to entering a convent I meant in the manner to which Heart responded – not in the actual literal structure of a convent, but as a way to remove oneself from any further abuse at the hands of men. Heart made a clear distinction between the two.
Heart,
I think I understand a lot more about the strategy/aims of seperatism than I did a couple of hours ago.
Now I have what I can see as positives to compare & balance with the negatives that I have felt about it.
It still seems to me that seperatism is somewhat of a retreat from society in that it attempts to reduce contact with men to a minimum, but at least I can understand it a bit better now. Whether or not it is an effective strategy on a societal level (as opposed to an individual level) is something I’ll be interested to find out.
Thanks for the explanation.
The comparison to entering a convent I meant in the manner to which Heart responded – not in the actual literal structure of a convent, but as a way to remove oneself from any further abuse at the hands of men. Heart made a clear distinction between the two.
No, I think I understand this. What I was saying (from my POV) is that b/c the convent is patriarchal in design, the very nature of “removal”, so to speak, is different. Does this make sense?
“It still seems to me that seperatism is somewhat of a retreat from society in that it attempts to reduce contact with men to a minimum, but at least I can understand it a bit better now. ”
Only if you define society as being male or about men though, no? You still seem to be coming at the idea of separatism with men in the forefront; as the absense of men being the defining point.
Sheelzebub,
I am aware of the problems that women had in the progressive movements and organizations of the 60’s & 70’s. Having actively participated in the local Green Party, I know that those same problems still exist. That is why I understand the need for women only groups. In some ways that helps explain seperatists, although I feel that there may be better ways to achieve the same ends in terms of participation and roles in progressive/radical causes – but I could be wrong as it didn’t work as hoped for the local Greens.
Some of my feelings about seperatism undoubtedly come from my experiences with women who have self-identified as seperatist and have been overtly hostile to me. Clearly, as Heart and others have explained, that is not necessarily an aspect of seperatism.
If seperatism works to change society as hoped, great. If it doesn’t, I don’t think that we’re any worse off than if we didn’t have seperatists.
Q Grrl,
I don’t think that I am viewing it with men in the forefront. I would feel the same thing about myself if I tried to limit my contact with women as a result of my experiences in my first marriage. I wouldn’t be defining society as women, yet I would review it as a retreat from society in that I am trying to exclude myself from contact with half of the people in our society.
As to your first comment… I think I see what you are saying. It sounds like you are saying that the mode or structure of retreat is not comparable. Do we agree that there is a retreat or removal, but the method and end result is very different? Or am I still missing something?
I think what you are missing is fairly nuanced, so I hope I can put it in words. Read this with a non-accusatory tone, even if it sounds different…
You speak of separatism as a retreat or removal from something, this thing being society in this case, and thus it is somewhat comparable to a woman entering a convent. However, being that a convent is part of society and part of what drives a woman to a convent (historically) is not just wanting to have a relationship with god, but also not being able to fit into conventional society, a convent is more of an escape from normative society. Separtism is not concerned with the intactness (?) of the male driven and dominated society. It is not a retreat or a removal, because both of those ideas can only exist if the primacy of the male driven society is kept intact. Separatism, viewed from the inside, is a society unto itself. Separatism, viewed from the outside, as a retreat or removal is reformism — not radical feminist politics. Separatism is existence unto itself, with no predicate — it is, um, separate! :)
alsis38, it seems like most of your arguments apply just as well to communities that don’t admit women, such as Augusta. Doesn’t this prove too much?
When you speak of experiences, you seem to be making two claims:
1. had someone else lived those experiences, they would come to the same conclusions and
2. those who have not lived those experiences can not understand these conclusions but must accept them
To number 1, I point to the fact that plenty of feminist women agree with me (of course, plenty don’t). There’s more to knowledge than experience, although many people find it hard to get certain knowledge other ways, I don’t think it’s impossible for most things.
To number 2, I wonder why the response from sexist men should not be the same. Why should they not claim that their experience has led them to the conclusion that they need to abuse women, and had you just had their experience, you would understand? As I noted above, this argument proves too much.
The reason I think individuality is so important is that systems that deny a person’s individuality have caused a bunch of harm over the years. If you’re expendable, it is likely that you will be expended. I point to the Soviet Union, or to industrial workers around the world (but especially in developing countries), or of course to women for nearly all of recorded history. Further, telling someone that their options are determined by their biology is precisely sexism, and is simply unacceptable (modulo affirmative action, which as I’ve noted isn’t appropriate for discussion boards).
Heart, I read your questions, and the answer was, quite simply “not me.” Like everyone, I have the responsibility to solve the problems of our world, but I do not bear responsibility for creating most of them. That I benefit from past and present injustices is unquestionable — I am a man, I am white, I am from a middle class background, and I am American. But a position of privilege cannot be shed. Instead, it must be taken into account in all things — “do I take this position because it benefits me?”
With respect to separatism, either temporary or permanent, large-scale or small-scale, I have examined myself thoroughly, and I am confident that my opposition is not selfish. If you are skeptical about my internal state here, perhaps you would not be if you had had my experiences.
I understand that historically, progressive movements have not treated women well at all (and, as Alpert notes, many leaders in these movements have been abusive). I understand that there are still problems. But many of the men I know try to do a whole lot better in the movements they’re involved in. I want to be part of the solution (and I think I am). And I reiterate that we’re all individuals, and denying this is inherently harmful.
Q Grrl, maybe the term “male reversal” was really big in feminist literature in the 1970s, but it doesn’t seem to have made it onto the known internet. I’m not asking you to spoon feed me — if you think I’m just uneducated, fell free to give me some links and tell me to drink from the firehouse of theory. As I’ve said, I wouldn’t object to a message board only for people who have read enough feminist theory. I’ll readily admit that I haven’t read a whole lot. I didn’t think this was that board — there are a lot of beginners here.
Q Grrl, I don’t think you’re responsible for how I feel. You’re only responsible for how you act (as we all are, of course). You’re imputing to me a bunch of views which I do not hold. When I say that this is not fair, I do not invoke the patriarchy. I invoke a concept of fairness that I hope we can all agree on: don’t claim that people have said things that they haven’t, and don’t claim that people believe things that you have no reason to believe that they believe.
An example of this behavior is bringing up Kobe Bryant. I’m not at fault for that, and I deplore it as much as you do.
I think it’s entirely possible for people to talk to each other about how they ought to behave. If not, how can anyone ever be convinced of anything?
Finally, I should note that as I’ve written this, a bunch more comments have come in. One thread seems to be opposition to separatism on the basis that it involves separation from the whole of society. That’s not a view I subscribe to — I occasionaly go to science fiction conventions, and what’s a con but a choice of a different society for a few days? My only objection is the basis for exclusion.
Omigod….another *click* moment. I’m not sure where to start here. Let’s see….
“To number 1, I point to the fact that plenty of feminist women agree with me (of course, plenty don’t). There’s more to knowledge than experience, although many people find it hard to get certain knowledge other ways, I don’t think it’s impossible for most things.”
alsis–translation, you’re the odd one out here. Your experiences and views about women and feminism as a woman are more foreign to feminism than his are.
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“To number 2, I wonder why the response from sexist men should not be the same. Why should they not claim that their experience has led them to the conclusion that they need to abuse women, and had you just had their experience, you would understand? As I noted above, this argument proves too much.”
alsis,—what you said basically equates you to a sexist man(however that’s defined, but it’s clearly not novalis). Sorry.
alsis, go back and learn some more about women’s lib and then come back to discuss it. ;-)
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Heart, I read your questions, and the answer was, quite simply “not me.”? Like everyone, I have the responsibility to solve the problems of our world, but I do not bear responsibility for creating most of them. That I benefit from past and present injustices is unquestionable ““ I am a man, I am white, I am from a middle class background, and I am American. But a position of privilege cannot be shed. Instead, it must be taken into account in all things ““ “do I take this position because it benefits me?”?
Hmmm….how do you take into account your privilage then? If you benefit from past injustices, is that not part of a problem that’s not just past but ongoing? Because an injustice is no longer actively going on, doesn’t mean that people of certain classes don’t continue to benefit from it, which makes it a present and not just a past problem, i.e. slavery for example.
“I understand that historically, progressive movements have not treated women well at all (and, as Alpert notes, many leaders in these movements have been abusive). I understand that there are still problems. But many of the men I know try to do a whole lot better in the movements they’re involved in. I want to be part of the solution (and I think I am). And I reiterate that we’re all individuals, and denying this is inherently harmful.”
And I’m sure I’ll get into trouble for saying this b/c so often in these discussions, it’s all about making men feel comfortable, but maybe if you weren’t so condescending to Q Grrl in your responses, you’d have a better chance of being “part of the solution.” This whole “male reversal” thing may have been big in the seventies, but for most women, it hasn’t gone away and simply b/c a man says it’s passe, doesn’t make it so. It’s best not to pretend that it did.
And yes, novalis, there certainly are still problems. Those of us who live as women are cognizant to those problems b/c we experience them on a daily basis to varying degrees.
Individuality is great, but it’s a white male thing, b/c white men are one of the few classes of people who have the luxury of being treated as individuals by society.
Radfem, my response to number 1 was simply that experience doesn’t get you anywhere — not that alsis38’s view was a minority view. I don’t care whether a view is common, I care whether it’s right.
My response to number 2 was that when one makes an argument, it needs to be broad enough to cover the cases one wants to cover and not so broad as to cover cases one wishes to be excluded. For example, we could eliminate crime entirely by locking everyone up — but that would be too broad.
I’m not attacking alsis personally; I’m merely pointing out that her arguments don’t hold water. My point, in short, was that an account based on stuff unobtainable except via experience is entirely unconvincing. You would reject it if you disagreed with its conclusions, and you should reject it even if you agree with its conclusions, since it is not a sound argument.
That I benefit from injustice past and present is a problem, yes. But I can’t not be white. I could no longer live in America, but I would still benefit greatly from the history of American exploitation. Whether or not I benefit from this, it is my responsibility to help improve the present and the future. How do I do this? I work for a nonprofit; I talk about the problems I see in the world; I try to influence people I know with privilege to consider issues of sex, gender, race, and sexual preferences.
I’m not being condescending to Q Grrl. She’s clearly read more theory than I have, and I’m just a newbie. I must admit I genuinely have no idea what “male reversal” is. When I’m told that it’s a standard part of theory, but the Internet has never heard of it, I must admit that I’m sceptical. The only thing I can figure out from context is that maybe it means a technique of argument in which one examines the applications of a proposed principle beyond the group the principle’s framers intended it for (when there’s nothing in the principle to discourage this reading). This is something I have no problem with — principles should be drawn tightly to prevent their use to justify wrong things. I considered addressing this when Q Grrl first used the term, but decided that this wasn’t a charitable reading, so I rejected it.
I don’t think individuality is a white male thing, and I don’t think that it’s a luxury. I think it’s a right every human has, and its denial is tragedy.
To number 2, I wonder why the response from sexist men should not be the same. Why should they not claim that their experience has led them to the conclusion that they need to abuse women, and had you just had their experience, you would understand? As I noted above, this argument proves too much.
Novalis, you are failing to take into consideration gendered power — the power men have in the world which women do not have, and I’ve given examples, owning the money, corporations, property, running governments and religion, inciting fear in women via terrorists acts like rape, incest and battering.
As to your number 2 above, that is, of course, the argument sexist men make– that their experiences have led them to believe they should abuse women. And so, that’s what they do. I think you likely do it, or have done it, as well, and maybe I’ll post a link to acts I consider to be abusive. However good a man is, look closely and you will find that he has abused women sometime. And the “gooder” a man is, the more up front he’ll be about it, the more readily he’ll cop to how he has, indeed, abused women. If the best men I know — men like John Stoltenbeg, Robert Jensen, Jackson Katz — cop to having abused women, I cannot wrap my mind around the possibility that all men haven’t done the same. I think they have.
Anyway, an important difference between men and women which you are failing to consider, again, is that men have had, and still have, the power in the world to abuse women with the support of their peers, spoken or unspoken, institutionally and otherwise, whereas women, even if they were of a mind to similarly abuse men, they could not because they have no such societal or cultural power. Men enjoy separatist space all over the world, whether by law or by fiat or by unspoken agreement or because it would be physically dangerous for women to enter their spaces, and that’s because we live under male supremacy. Men enjoy power in the world. Women, by comparison, do not enjoy similar power, and that’s why our insistence on separatist space is qualitatively and substantively different from any exclusive space men might demand or defend.
Heart
alsis38, it seems like most of your arguments apply just as well to communities that don’t admit women, such as Augusta. Doesn’t this prove too much?
It proves that you love straw men. The crux of the argument feminists made toward women being barred from Augusta was that it was a crucial part of deals in that particular upper-echelon of the business/political community. So by barring women, women were also barred from access to valuable business/political connections.
I don’t see how Heart’s group can be paralleled to Augusta, but then again I don’t spend much time there. I look forward to your explaining to me how men who want to pursue sucess in mainstream business and politics are being hampered because they aren’t invited to Heart’s space.
When you speak of experiences, you seem to be making two claims:
1. had someone else lived those experiences, they would come to the same conclusions and
2. those who have not lived those experiences can not understand these conclusions but must accept them
Wrong. Those, again, are your straw men. Plenty of women have not arrived at the conclusions that Heart has. I haven’t. I don’t hang out in separatist spaces, but I respect the goals and reasons for which they exist.
And, yes, if you don’t want to come across as an asshole, you DO need to accept them. Only an asshole barrels onto a space that does not harm him by its existence. The same, BTW, would apply to me if I wanted to go posting all over the Margins about how much better my favorite co-ed posting spaces are for women than the Margins could ever hope to be.
To number 1, I point to the fact that plenty of feminist women agree with me (of course, plenty don’t). There’s more to knowledge than experience, although many people find it hard to get certain knowledge other ways, I don’t think it’s impossible for most things.
Again, you keep painting yourself as a victim, but you are not. Heart’s is not the only feminist board in the world. Your obsession about how it allegedly hurts you actually add fuel to her idea that a separate space is necessary for women to find something they don’t get from the world at large. You are declaring a right to access where none exists, and where your lack of access does nothing more than bruise your ego. Your bruised ego, once again, need not be Heart’s nor any woman’s, top priority.
To number 2, I wonder why the response from sexist men should not be the same. Why should they not claim that their experience has led them to the conclusion that they need to abuse women, and had you just had their experience, you would understand? As I noted above, this argument proves too much.
Fuck, but you’re an offensive piece of work. I can’t believe that you just paralleled a closed internet board to abuse– either psychological or physical. Any man who claims that he has the right to beat the shit out of a woman because in his experience it’s appropriate is full of shit. And so are you.
The reason I think individuality is so important is that systems that deny a person’s individuality have caused a bunch of harm over the years. If you’re expendable, it is likely that you will be expended. I point to the Soviet Union, or to industrial workers around the world (but especially in developing countries),
I have no idea what you’re talking about here. Now a single woman-only space is as repressive as the Soviet Union. Uhhhhh…. suuuure. I have no idea what your point about workers in developing countries is, either. Grow the fuck up, novalis.
or of course to women for nearly all of recorded history. Further, telling someone that their options are determined by their biology is precisely sexism, and is simply unacceptable (modulo affirmative action, which as I’ve noted isn’t appropriate for discussion boards).
Oh, sweet jumping NOTA. Did I really just blow my whole afternoon break futilely arguing with a man whose such a narcissist that he can’t tell the difference between access to one board and his “options” in the rest of the world ?
You really do just ooze self-entitlement out of every pore, Mister. And the fact that you’ve got me siding with a group of separatists when I’m not now nor will likely ever be one speaks volumes about just how stinky your particular ooze is.
Sheelzebub, Q, radfem, Heart, I’m leaving this clod to you. Frankly, I’d rather be on ebay drooling over all the jazz CDs I can’t afford. Good luck.
“My point, in short, was that an account based on stuff unobtainable except via experience is entirely unconvincing. You would reject it if you disagreed with its conclusions, and you should reject it even if you agree with its conclusions, since it is not a sound argument.”
Then you would spend a lot of your time with feminists, remaining unconvinced, which no doubt would be excruciatingly painful for you and quickly become the focal point of all discourse. If you are so dismissive of women’s experiences, why are you really all that interested in feminism then? Why are you interested in being an ally to feminism? Or *helping* in the cause be that it were? If, has been said, you’re so undone by the concept of women’s only space on the internet, then maybe you’re not ready to tell anyone what feminism is and isn’t. What should define feminism and (gasp) that the definition might include things that don’t convince you.
The reason why theory, sound arguments and conclusions are so important to you is b/c you CAN’T have those experiences, so you’re grasping at something that gives you an “in” to feminism and turning it into the decider of what is feminist(sound arguments, conclusions) and what’s not(women’s experiences) based on your own criteria. Which is fine for formulating your own opinion, but does not itself define the movement. Sorry.
I don’t agree with most of what Novalis is writing here, but he’s being civil and seems to have a coherent, if misguided, approach to the question.
Perhaps its my cold rational patriarchical white privilege talking, but when one person is talking calmly and asking questions, and the other person is calling him full of shit, clod, etc., I derive significant data about the maturity level of the respective participants, and the level of intellectual security they have in their positions. I’ve been alive for a reasonable time period now, and I keep noticing that people who stoop to name-calling are doing it because they don’t have a very good argument, or because they don’t have an adult level of control over their emotional state.
YMMV.
Wow, you just never know which threads are going to take off. :-)
Heart, if you do have such a link handy, I’d be very interested in reading it.
I’d like to remind everyone to try and remain civil while posting on “Alas.”
“I don’t agree with most of what Novalis is writing here, but he’s being civil and seems to have a coherent, if misguided, approach to the question.
Perhaps its my cold rational patriarchical white privilege talking, but when one person is talking calmly and asking questions, and the other person is calling him full of shit, clod, etc., I derive significant data about the maturity level of the respective participants, and the level of intellectual security they have in their positions. I’ve been alive for a reasonable time period now, and I keep noticing that people who stoop to name-calling are doing it because they don’t have a very good argument, or because they don’t have an adult level of control over their emotional state.”
The fact that he’s coherant isn’t exactly working in his favor today, unfortunately.
So are you the calm, rational man who tells us how emotional we women folk are? Hmmm…I was wondering when that type of “pro-feminist” man would show up today. Gee thanks for not calling alsis, a “ball breaker” or anything like that.
Well, Robert, I am very mature, very intelligent and very, very tired of shall we say, listening to men whine that they really, really, really want to help feminists but we women need to make feminism more palatable to them in order for them to tell us how they want feminism defined and how they want to help us. I am really, really, really tired of trying to explain to so-called pro-feminist men that they are not the ones who get to set the parameters including the rules for discourse for our movement simply because societal rules have told them their whole life they get to do so with everything else. alsis gave intelligent discussion, but you can only bang your head against an oak tree so many times. It’s very interesting that though you start in by calling novalis, “misguided”, you spend your time lecturing about how the WOMAN is supposed to behave. Very interesting. Also, very OLD.
Actually, Radfem, I talked about how PEOPLE are supposed to behave. I’m not telling a woman that she’s behaving badly; I’m telling a person that. Isn’t that the idea behind feminism, that women should be treated like people?
If Alsis was the one being polite and Novalis was the person calling names, I would post the same thing. (Well, I would if Novalis had the same history with me of name-calling.)
Your point about men trying to set the boundaries of the discourse is an apt one, it seems to me. I think you are absolutely right that men don’t get to set the parameters for a discussion of issues that women are claiming as their own. Confusion sets in for me when you continue to argue with the man, however; if you don’t want his input on his terms, then reject his input and move on, or try and negotiate a set of mutually-agreeable terms for taking the input. Arguing with him about whether or not he’s entitled to his own terms for his own discourse seems counterproductive towards the end of you controlling YOUR own discourse.
Robert:
So to you, being overbearing and patronizing constitutes “politeness?” And that this “politeness” of his outweighs all the insult manifest in his attitude toward feminist women?
So are you telling us that form is more important to you than content, and style more important than substance?
“Actually, Radfem, I talked about how PEOPLE are supposed to behave. I’m not telling a woman that she’s behaving badly; I’m telling a person that. Isn’t that the idea behind feminism, that women should be treated like people”
Well, I look at it differently. I see some women on this thread being amazingly patient and accomodating of the men in this thread. Even when male posters say, “well this woman can’t be all that bright” or basically say to women(abeit civil, by a man’s definition) that she’s full of crap and that her own life experiences are meaningless when it comes to feminism, b/c after all, society teaches men that they define everything, even feminism, that’s considered civil, by men’s definition. But to women, that attitude, that condescension, that sense of male entitlement is as offensive as hell. But we hold our tongues about that to the best of our ability and maintain civility, again as defined by men.
of course, women are people. But then “people” most often is a term used by men to cloud the issues of the inequalities between men and women in all areas of life even more, just like white people use “we’re all members of the HUMAN race” to get around their discomfort about our privilage over people of color.
“Alsis was the one being polite and Novalis was the person calling names, I would post the same thing. (Well, I would if Novalis had the same history with me of name-calling.)”
If alsis were a man, she’d be treated a whole lot differently.
“Your point about men trying to set the boundaries of the discourse is an apt one, it seems to me. I think you are absolutely right that men don’t get to set the parameters for a discussion of issues that women are claiming as their own. Confusion sets in for me when you continue to argue with the man, however; if you don’t want his input on his terms, then reject his input and move on, or try and negotiate a set of mutually-agreeable terms for taking the input. Arguing with him about whether or not he’s entitled to his own terms for his own discourse seems counterproductive towards the end of you controlling YOUR own discourse. ”
I’m not arguing with him, and he’s set his own parameters for all of us women apparently, as society has taught him. I’m rejecting them and it’s assisting in my discourse immensely, just not his. Maybe you should reread his posts again?
When you’re finished with me, will you turn around and hold his posting style to scrutiny as well??
I didn’t think so. It never hurts to ask though.
Well, Molly we’re hear to learn from them, after all…. ;-)
But thanks for your post, you put it all together in few words. The way civility is apparently defined can still seem *uncivil* to women. It certainly feels that way.
ok, so what am i supposed to say of people (of whatever gender) whom i believe – rightly or wrongly – not to be all that bright? what would you prefer i call the spade, and why?
Yeah, Robert. Because it’s so mature to compare Heart to the Soviet Politburo, or whatever. [rolleyes]
You know, I’m really fucking sick of your patronizing little wrist-slaps over my language, Robert. In fact, as far as I can tell, you pretty much ignore what I post until those Hallmark moments when you can come in and chide me for not being suitably respectful of your and other male’s condescending brand of civility. Do me a favor: Just don’t talk to me. We clearly have vastly different views of what constitutes respect, and of who deserves it. It’s remarkably hypocritical of novalis and certain other men to behave as they do –whining like spoiled children because there’s one tiny little corner of the ‘net-verse where they can’t just run in and start posting any damn thing that pops into their narcissistic little skulls. And it’s remarkably hypocritical of YOU to pay no attention to their thinly veiled, passive-aggressive insults, even as you have the utter temerity to scold me because I don’t care for passive-aggressive bullshit– and I say so.
Robert, just skip over my posts, and stay the fuck off my back.
radfem, I owe you. That “deluxe” gift box of gourmet fish flakes is en route. Keep watching your mailbox. ;)
Why assume Robert is pro-feminist?
Novalis did say that Heart can’ t be all that bright, but that was before she was participating on this thread, so I don’t think that can fairly be called being rude to another participant. If Novalis had said that Heart wasn’t all that bright after Heart started participating, I would have called him on it.
(As it was, I wasn’t too worried about defending Heart on that score because it’s such an obviously ridiculous and, frankly, stupid thing to say about Heart. Whether you agree with her or not, no one can read Heart’s writing and not immediately know that she’s smart as hell.)
Before Heart started posting here, he was no more being rude to Heart than Char was being rude to me by trashing me over on the Margins.
Novalis, read with a benefit of the doubt, never said to Alsis that “she’s full of crap and that her own life experiences are meaningless when it comes to feminism.” A kinder, and in my 0pinion more accurate, reading is that he said that Alsis’ experiences weren’t more meaningful as evidence invoked in an argument than other people’s (including other women’s) experiences. Nothing about that statement is insulting to Alsis, or suggests that he thinks that he as a male has a right to define feminism for Alsis.
The poster whose stile Robert held up to scrutiny was Alsis’. Alsis had made a lot of personal attacks on Novalis (he oozes self-entitlement out of every pore, he’s a clod, he’s full of shit, “grow the fuck up Novalis,” etc.. She’s also attacked Robert quite a lot, in the exact same way, over the last month or so.
If Robert’s standard is “does this poster refrain from making personal attacks on people in the conversation he disagrees with,” then Robert was perfectly justified in criticizing Alsis but not Novalis.
And then novalis repeated again the “not too bright” crack.
Smells like trolling to me, frankly.
Amp, Robert can say any damn thing he wants in this place as far as I’m concerned. So can you, since it’s yours and all. That doesn’t change my opinion of him, or my desire to simply have him not address me. I sure as blazes have avoided addressing him as much as possible recently because A) I really didn’t want you to have to referee like you now have to, B) I frankly don’t enjoy being provoked, and it seems like an awful lot of what Robert says here on various topics is indeed meant to anger people, though I know he’d deny as much until he’s blue in the face C) I like even less people who provoke and then chide others for responding with just the anger that they were aiming for in the first place, and D) If I had to respond to him every time he said something so over-the-top clueless and insensitive that my jaw dropped, I’d never get around to doing anything else on the net.
Actually, Robert made several attempts to respond to you with his (and my?) “condescending brand of civility” just last month – not just about your language, but about the issues you were bringing up. You responded by treating him with utter contempt.
As for Novalis, he made a slippery slope argument: “The reason I think individuality is so important is that systems that deny a person’s individuality have caused a bunch of harm over the years. If you’re expendable, it is likely that you will be expended. I point to the Soviet Union, or to industrial workers around the world (but especially in developing countries), or of course to women for nearly all of recorded history.”
If you’re determined to take offense, I guess you can read that as comparing Heart to the Soviets. But I don’t think that’s a fair reading of Novalis’ comment. To say “policy A is a bad thing, because in the past it has led to bad things, such as tragedy B” is a perfectly reasonable form of argument, and is not normally taken as a personal insult to whomever they’re arguing with.
If I say “Robert, being against welfare is a bad thing, because in the past having no welfare led to the suffering of the great depression,” I’m not accusing Robert of being Herbert Hoover; I’m just pointing out that his preferred policy has in the past had bad outcomes.
For me, it comes down to civility. By that, I don’t mean “don’t swear.” I mean “don’t try to find the worse, least charitable possible reading of what the people you’re talking to are saying.” And it also means treat people with respect, as far as you’re able.
I think Novalis is very mistaken about many things, but I also think he’s tried to treat people with respect, and he hasn’t been leaping to the worst possible interpretation of what other folks here have said. I don’t think the same can be said of your posts addressing Novalis, frankly.
Alsis, I love having you post here and hope you’ll continue posting. And I certainly hope you don’t find this post hurtful. But in this case, I think the criticism of you is fair.
Of course, it may be suggested that I’m only saying this because you’re a woman and Novalis is male. However, if my memory serves, every single poster I’ve banned for rudeness has been male. So I don’t think it can fairly be said that I enforce civility rules only on women.
Speaking for myself, I’d prefer you not say it at all.
1) It’s a total ad hom. It has no place in any reasonable discussion.
2) In this case, saying so about someone who is obviously extremely bright just made you look like an idiot.
3) It’s an unkind thing to say. All else being equal, it’s better to err on the side of kindness.
Whatever, Amp.
All that’s fair enough.
Thanks! I sincerely appreciate that.
Maybe it’s because I know what Robert’s like on the college alumni list we both belong to – where, frankly, he enjoys provoking people a lot – but it seems to me that he’s actually been attempting to avoid that behavior on “Alas.” Not having that background, of course, there’s no reason for you to feel the same.
Robert doesn’t have to try to provoke people. Just by being an extreme right-winger posting in an extremely left-wing forum, he’s provoking people.
I’m not saying that you have to respond to Robert at all (you don’t), or that there’s any problem with you asking him not to respond to you (there isn’t, although of course he may or may not go along with your request).
I’m just trying to be fair – but under the circumstances, that’s not easy for me. Keep in mind, you’re both old friends of mine – we’ve been friends since ’86, iirc, and I think I first met Rob in ’88. So I’m very pleased to see both of you posting here, but it’s obviously not in the cards that the two of you will get along. Oh, well.
I think that the style/substance distinction you’re making is often a false distinction. Sometimes style carries substance. The style we write in can say “I have contempt for you,” or it can say “I’m pissed off at you and don’t understand your view, but I acknowlege that you’re a fellow human being and will thus attempt to treat you decently,” or it can say “I like and respect you.” These messages, which we convey with our tone, are part of the substance of what we write.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore the substance contained in tone. At the same time, because reading tone is usually subjective, it’s important not to read too much into it – to consciously try to give everyone (but especially the people we disagree with) the benefit of the doubt.
In internet arguments, the “form” is usually where we choose to treat each other with kindness, or not. The “content” is whatever we’re arguing about. The two are not interchangable, but they are interwoven; form affects content, and vice versa. Content matters, of course, but form matters too.
Well, yeah, Novalis did say I could not be that bright, and that sucked rocks. But ultimately, as Amp says, and as is evidenced here, it didn’t matter. My posts correct that assertion. Which is all to say, I wasn’t particularly offended. Heh.
Amp, here’s what I think is abuse. It comes from a publication entitled Now That the Silence is Broken which is circulated amongst those who work with battered women.
Physical Violence Checklist
* Step, punch, grab, kick, choke, push, restrain, pull hair, pinch, bite
* Rape (use of force, threats or coercion to obtain sex)
* Use of weapons, throwing things, keeping weapons around which frighten her
* Intimidation (standing in the doorway during arguments; angry or threatening gestures, use of size to intimidate, standing over her, out-shouting, driving recklessly)
* Uninvited touching
* Threats (verbal or nonverbal, direct or indirect)
* Harassment/stalking behavior (uninvited visits or calls, following her around, checking up on her, embarrassing her in public, not leaving when asked)
* Isolation (preventing or making it hard for her to see/talk to friensd, relatives or others)
Psychological and Economic Abuse Checklist
*Yelling, swearing, being lewd, raising your voice, using angry expression or gestures
* Criticism (name calling, swearing, mocking, put-downs, ridicule, accusations, blaming, use of trivializing words or gestures)
* Pressure tactics (using her to make decisions, using guilt/accusations, sulking, threatening to withhold financial support, manipulating children, bandwagoning, abusing feelings)
* Interrupting, changing topics, not listening, not responding, twisting her words, topic stringing, economic coercion (withholding money, the car, or other resources; sabotaging her attempts to work)
* Claiming “the truth,” being the authority, defining her behavior, using “logic”
* Lying, withholding information, infidelity
* Using pornography (e.g., magazines, movies, strip shows, home videos, etc.)
* Withholding help on child care/house work; not doing your share or following through on your agreements
* Emotional withholding (not expressing feelings, not giving support, validation, attention, compliments, respect for her feelings, rights, and opinions)
* Not taking care of yourself (not asking for help or support from friends, abusing drugs or alcohol, being a “people pleaser”)
Heart
civility, again as defined by men
I wasn’t aware that civility was a gendered concept. I thought it encompassed basic respect for other people, and treating them as a fellow human being rather than as an object. For example, while it is clear that you disagree with what I wrote, you addressed me as a person, did me the courtesy of reading what I wrote instead of arguing back against something in your own mind, and implicitly assumed that I have a functioning mind by creating original articulation of your own thoughts and putting them out there. (And I’m trying to do the same thing; let me know if I drop the ball, please.)
If you think of civility as being something different than that, I would genuinely be enlightened to read about your approach. Part of showing someone else respect is integrating their own definition of respect into your treatment of them, within broadly reasonable boundaries, or so it seems to me.
of course, women are people. But then “people”? most often is a term used by men to cloud the issues of the inequalities between men and women in all areas of life even more, just like white people use “we’re all members of the HUMAN race”? to get around their discomfort about our privilage over people of color.
I certainly believe that there are people that do that. At the same time, is it not possible that there are men who use the word “people”, and whites who use “human”, as meaning simply “people” and/or “human”? It is my personal philosophy that we are all human beings and that we should be treated, broadly, in the same fashion. I doubt very much that I live up to this ideal sufficiently, but it is the ideal. And the ideal means that if a black man mugs me, I’m mad at him for stealing my stuff; if a white woman is rude to me, I’m irritated at the lack of human respect shown; conversely, I owe the black man the same respect for property that I owe another white man, and I owe the woman the same conversational treatment and intellectual respect I would give a man. My reading of history seems to show that an awful lot of problems are caused by folks of all descriptions who define humanity narrowly, and believe that the people not in the appropriate group can be treated differently. That’s an inevitable part of human nature, but we have to try and push that “humanity” envelope out as far as our spirits will allow. The rough-and-ready guide to action that I use is that recognizing my own fallibilities when it comes to treating “others” poorly, I adopt a standard of “how would I treat someone JUST LIKE ME in this situation”, and judge my own behavior accordingly.
If alsis were a man, she’d be treated a whole lot differently.
That’s true. And I think it is appropriate to take how someone has been treated into consideration when judging their behavior – whether that would lead us to give someone a little slack, or expect a higher standard. I don’t see anything in Novalis’ treatment of Alsis that justifies her language or approach.
In fact, it seems to me that Novalis treated Alsis exactly like he would treat a man – he read an argument that he thought very little of, and said that he thought very little of it, and he wasn’t particularly gentle about saying so – while at the same time, he remained within the bounds of elementary civility. No ad hominem attack, no namecalling; well, you say there is condescension and entitlement. I won’t argue with you about that; if you perceive it, it very likely is real. And if that is so, then bad on Novalis.
However, then we have to ask – what is the appropriate person-to-person reaction to condescension and/or entitlement? In my view, calling the person on it is absolutely appropriate. I don’t see what name-calling, personal attacks add to that approach. In fact, it seems that sort of behavior is normally associated with people who believe their positions or opinions to be specially privileged, and react to any questioning of the positions, or dismissal of the opinions, on a very low level. If I saw a man taking a name-calling, personal-attack approach in a discussion, I would call him on it. I would want to be called on it myself if it were my own behavior. I called Alsis on it. (And you see her response.)
All of which is a very, very long-winded way of saying that, to the best of my limited ability, I am treating you and Alsis and Barry and everyone else on this forum in the same way I would want to be treated myself. (Jesus said it a lot shorter, but then, He couldn’t touch-type, and He wasn’t procrastinating on a project.)
I’m surely going to fall down in the pursuit of that goal, and I will appreciate the time and energy you, or others, may choose to donate towards picking me up.
Are you sure it’s the dial-up that’s the problem? I’ve posted from my workplace, either before or after work, several times without any problem, and that’s a dial-up.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore the substance contained in tone. At the same time, because reading tone is usually subjective, it’s important not to read too much into it – to consciously try to give everyone (but especially the people we disagree with) the benefit of the doubt.
In internet arguments, the “form”? is usually where we choose to treat each other with kindness, or not. The “content”? is whatever we’re arguing about. The two are not interchangable, but they are interwoven; form affects content, and vice versa. Content matters, of course, but form matters too.”
Would it be bad form for me to characterize this as patronizing twaddle?
With all the inexcusable insults this novalis person has dealt out in this post, all you see is then harsh language he deservedly received in response? That the boys’ debating club rules apply: insult women, and especially women’s intelligence, from the very first word you post, and it’s all OK so long as you don’t use harsh language?
I’m not talking about “tone,” I’m talking about the actual content which is full of deep insults for women and feminism. I’m talking about a man who claims to be a feminist, yet equates women exercising freedom of association with the Soviet Union. Did you just not notice that? Would you have noticed if he’d equated it with Nazism? With Pol Pot? What would it have taken for you to take notice of the deep insult that drips out of every post?
Heart, would you say that those same behaviors indicate abuse regardless of the gender of the abused or abuser?
—Myca
Heart, would you say that those same behaviors indicate abuse regardless of the gender of the abused or abuser?
Nope.
History matters. Reality matters. Gendered power, especially, *matters*.
Heart
Bean,
Is it possible that both parts of example #1 are true?
Heart – I’d like some clarification, because, well, I’m confused.
Your list of abuse seems nigh exhaustive. well composed and all that, and the list of physical abuse is nicely detailed and clear. I’d pass a list like that around among people I know, just to see them become more conscious of such behavior.
The psychological list has some things I need clarification on. some of them seem to be genuine personality quirks I’ve seen in people of both genders, in everyday interaction. is this a list like a psychological symptom list, “you may exhibit some of these symptoms, but only if they interfere with your relationship are they in fact a problem?”
in particular: Not taking care of yourself (not asking for help or support from friends, abusing drugs or alcohol, being a “people pleaser”). So, if I do not ask for help or support from friends, or if I’m a “people pleaser” am I being abusive of my partner, or is such an action symptomatic of abuse?
I really like what you have to say, but I’d like to understand better.
[plotz]
Molly, were you posting on Portland Indymedia back in October ? That was when some outraged Lefty eminem fan likened me to Pol Pot for being unkind to his hero. Honestly, do all these guys go to the same speechwriter, or what ? I will forward you the link if you’re that easily amused.
It would be kinda mean of you. Also, I don’t think I was being patronizing; you asked a question and I answered it.
I don’t agree that Novalis has insulted women’s intelligence in any general fashion. He did insult Heart’s intelligence, but Heart does not represent all womanhood.
I think it’s fine if people use harsh fucking language. Honestly, I don’t give a shit.
I noticed the bit you’re referring to, but I don’t think your interpretation is fair (by “fair,” I mean “trying to read other people’s words in a reasonably kind light”).
As I already said to Alsis, he made a slippery slope argument:
If you’re determined to take offense, I guess you can read that as comparing feminists to the Soviets. But I don’t think that’s a fair reading of Novalis’ comment. To say “policy A is a bad thing, because in the past it has led to bad things, such as tragedy B”? is a reasonable and commonplace form of argument, and is not normally taken as a personal insult to whomever they’re arguing with.
If I say “Robert, being against welfare is a bad thing, because in the past having no welfare led to the suffering of the great depression,”? I’m not accusing Robert of being Herbert Hoover; I’m just pointing out that his preferred policy has in the past had bad outcomes.
If he had actually said “feminism is like Nazism” or “feminism is like Soviet-style totalitarianism,” then I’d agree with you. But he didn’t write that. There’s an obvious, kinder, alternative interpretation of what Novalis wrote, and my experience is that debates and conversations work better if people try and make their assumptions kinder, when reasonably possible.
Novalis did say that Heart can’ t be all that bright, but that was before she was participating on this thread, so I don’t think that can fairly be called being rude to another participant. If Novalis had said that Heart wasn’t all that bright after Heart started participating, I would have called him on it.
No I didn’t. On the contrary, I think that, of the people who disagree with me on this board, her arguments have been the strongest. Also, she’s been totally civil. Even if I did think she was stupid, I wouldn’t have said so. Nomen Nescio was the one who made the “not bright” comment. I probably should have said something when I saw it, because it was way out of bounds.
The one comment I regret making to Heart was about the stove. My normal way of thinking is strongly based on analogy. I was trying too hard to get my post out quickly. A major flaw in the structure of online discussions is that it encourages this, but I’m responsible for my own acts. I’m sorry that I was sarcastic there when I could have instead simply spent the time to explain my argument against the idea that conclusions based on experience are unarguable. I’m sorry not because I wasn’t effective, but because I was rude when I could have been polite to someone who has been nothing but polite to me.
bean, let me see if I can get a definition from your examples.
I know it’s often easier to generate examples than a definition, and almost everyone does it. On the other hand, because examples can often produce many definitions, a set of examples in liu of a definition can often lead to people talking past each other.
It seems to me that both your examples involve a different (and, according to the person who makes a claim of male reversal, wrong) way of looking at a situation. In the first, some separatists choose to emphasize their focus on women; the reversal is to choose to emphasize their exclusion of men or their rejection of mainstream society. In the second, some feminists see the very act of questioning separatism as grossly impolite and indicitive of a lack of respect; they respond to that percieved attack. The reveral is to focus on the response to the question.
So, from bean’s examples, if I’m analyzing them correctly, I get the definition “A male reversal is when a situation is reframed or reaimed in a way the original framer doesn’t agree with, generally away from the original framer’s conception of feminism.”
Of course, I could be wrong on this definition — I’m working from two examples here, and I know that there’s a lot of space to draw different conclusions from that.
Given this definition, I can see something of value in the concept (although I naturally reject the name). It seems to me that it can be a species of straw person argument, in which the discussion is moved away from what proponents of a position actually believe. In other words, it’s much easier to argue with someone if you get to make up what they’re saying, but that’s a wrong thing to do.
However, I reject the idea that reframing is necessarily a bad technique for argument. Ampersand neatly dealt with a pro-life argument by reframing using the lung donation analogy.
I hadn’t really thought about the framing issue before now in this way, so I’m actually glad that bean’s post made me think. My current thoughts are that reframing is a powerful rhetorical device, which should be used with care. Careless reframing can derail a debate, by making people argue past each other. This could be a major reason it can be so hard to have arguments on the net. I wasn’t particularly careful in my reframing; it’s only luck that I’m still satisfied that the frames I have been using are fair.
An example of this reframing which I don’t agree with is the idea that separatists are “cutting themselves off from society.” I reject it because I think that the idea a society must include everyone born in its sphere is false. When I walked to work today in Boston, I felt a profound alienation from the hordes of screaming football fans cheering the Patriots, even though I consider the Boston area to be my home. Women who reject sexist culture (whether separatists, or simply those who avoid certain scenes) aren’t cutting themselves off from “society” — they’re choosing a different society. I don’t necessarily agree on how they define the society they want to live in, but to talk of “cutting off” is a bad reframing, which hurts the debate. I don’t think, in this case, that it was intentional, but it’s something I’ll watch out for in the future.
Oh, one more thing: Ampersand, your charitable interpretation of my comments was accurate to my intent.
I should be more explicit when I evoke concepts which tend to cause revulsion, to state the argument I’m not making, as well as the one I am.
It seems like “male reversal” means making an accusation against feminists or women that reverses ‘the reality of the situation’. If so, it seems a little troubling in that it doesn’t distinguish between the speaker’s views of reality and reality itself. (I try to do this habitually, with imperfect success.) On the other hand, all this criticism of Heart’s board seems a bit out of proportion to me. It doesn’t seem dangerous unless they manage to avoid discussing issues with people who don’t post there, or seeing or hearing criticism by non-posters. And can they really avoid exposure to men’s viewpoints entirely? (I mean, how many news and entertainment media would they have to shun?) Heart clearly doesn’t try to lock herself in a box, since she keeps posting here. I don’t know why it’s evoked such controversy, or why you’d fear that slippery slope.
So, in this thread we have: non-feminist men making reasoned and respectful arguments, admitting ignorance, and coming back with civility and humility when they’ve been repeatedly insulted. We have feminist men trying to moderate the debate, including speaking out in support of feminists when they’re being attacked.
And we have feminist women saying that all men are abusers, that any agreement with a woman is taking advantage of male privilege, never mind how these feminists are responding to anyone who dares to disagree with them. Oh, and polite and reasoned debate are patriarchal standards which oppress women.
All I can say is, count me in with the decent people rather than the feminists any day. Robert has said something similar, but his opinion is automatically invalid for some of the people here because he’s male. I’m female and I’m definitely with Novalis here.
Actually, littleviolet, you were the only one here who thought it looked like male posturing. Plenty of people thought it was annoying, but for different reasons.
I would have been extremely irritated if some well-meaning doofus had asked me if I “needed help,” and I would have been incensed if he had behaved as though physical violence were the only concern. Of course I didn’t need help, or someone to fight for me–at least not most of the time. Most of the time, I wasn’t even terribly worried that I would be hurt, although of course the threat was always there to some degree. What I needed was for the people watching to acknowledge their complicity, and to respond to Random Douchebag’s attack on me as a social, rather than a personal, problem.
And, novalis, google “patriarchal reversal,” or maybe “reversal” with “Mary Daly,” and you’ll get plenty of hits.
I think the last 25 or so posts on this thread highlight exactly ****WHY***** women need separatist space. Come on guys — there are some highly intelligent, radically thinking women posting on this thread… and what happens? It all becomes about you: the males. Somehow our tone is more offensive than having to listen to anti-feminist rantings from posters with long documented histories of anti-feminist beliefs. Somehow our tone is more offensive then a man entering the conversation, ignoring all the political and theoretical writings by the women, and telling us how to behave. Patronizing as hell. And, for those of you not familiar with feminism, this is a known and true tactic by men to silence women. Could any of you even highlight key points that alsis, radfem, or myself have made? Probably not, because you’re all so caught up in civility. Amp, your policing of the women’s tone, rather than the continued presence of men with antifeminist viewpoints is a huge slap in the face. What kind of feminism is it that polices women’s tone but ignores the actions and (misogynistic) words of men???? Please clarify that for me. That’s not how I would define feminism.. and as a woman, I get to be the one to define it. As a woman I don’t need men bullying me, or trying to ****shame**** me, into being nice, or into defining feminism so that it is civil and rational and reasoned, and ick, palatable for men.
I don’t have to take the patronizing and offensive words of a man who hasn’t read feminist theory, but squicks under your radar Amp with his “I can’t find it on the known Internet”. Why didn’t you challenge this?? I’m sure he has no trouble finding porn on the Internet… so we all know how important the internet is and the absolute verity of its content. Right. Because this man can’t be bothered to read feminist theory (or do a search on Mary Daly) he gets to claim that I’m a poor communicator, that my veiws are not valid because they don’t meet his criteria [Google Truth ™], and that *** I *** don’t know what feminsim is or isn’t.
WHY DID YOU NOT CHALLENGE THIS AMP??????????????????? and yes, I am yelling.
Why is it more important to you to get the women to calm down? Why is it more important for you to allow Robert under your radar just long enough for him to gatekeep? Are all the women sheep here to be herded at the proper time under the good guidance of the male posters?
When men say stupid shit in the guise of politics or theory, women are going to get pissed. This isn’t a game, these are our lives. We are facing real legislation that erodes our civil rights; we face real rape from real men; we face our own abortions in our own bodies over our own anguish. This isn’t theoretical. It is real. We’re not just talking outta our asses — but you men like to insist that we do. Nice. Real nice.
There is a word for your behavior: misogyny. The irony being that you think you’re feminists. But you can’t see through your disrespect of, fear towards, and control of women to notice the discrepancies. Well, I can. It sucks.
Amp says: “If you’re determined to take offense, ”
That. That right there.
That is sexist amp.
There is nothing feminist about your attitude.
How many more women have to tell you that Novalis is offensive before you might believe us? You say you don’t see it, but as a man how could you? We’re talking about women’s lives, women’s reality. Of course you don’t see it as offensive: you’ve been socially conditioned not to. Fuck. How do you call yourself a feminist again? I mean, really? It just all flies out the window when you need to protect the boys, eh?
Out of curiosity, Q Grrl, is there any disagreement between a man and a feminist woman, where an outsider can think the feminist woman is mistaken and not be a misogynist?
In other words, is “feminism” a useful code for “always right”?
Heart,
Would you say that your abuse list is applicable to all relationships? Given the source I was unsure if it’s intended for use only within the context of a relationship recognised as physically abusive or more broadly. Some of the items on the emotional abuse checklist don’t seem neccessarily abusive, but could\would acquire an abusive cast if you put them in the context of a physically abusive relationship or in combination with other factors.
[In reference to post # 118]:
What do you mean by abuse in the context of this post? The problem with using ‘abuse’ in the context of a statement like ‘all men abuse women’ is that, at least for me, the word is freighted with specific associations and meanings (male on female physical violence for example) and I’m pretty sure you’re using it in a much broader, and possibly more questionable sense.
Thanks
Tarn
Robert: Thanks for being condescending. And rhetorical.
Oh, and Robert, thanks for being dismissive. And distracting. And egotistical.
Thanks for ignoring the content of this thread just so you could get a few good kicks in on the feminists. What are you doing here?
Thanks for ignoring the content of this thread just so you could get a few good kicks in on the feminists. What are you doing here?
Well, if you examine the history of the thread, you’ll see that I came here to disagree with Novalis, to assert the individual right to associate freely, and as a concomitant of that personal belief, to defend Heart’s right to configure her conversational space however she wanted.
Then I dropped out for a hundred messages or so, and resurfaced to notice one participant in the thread being really rude, and to comment on that.
My question wasn’t rhetorical; I generally want to know. Sorry about the distracting egotism. What exactly is it that I’m distracting from, again?
Of course your question was rhetorical. You already know the answer that you want to hear.
And thanks for acting clueless.
Of course your question was rhetorical. You already know the answer that you want to hear.
That’s true.
What I don’t know is the answer that you have to give. Since I don’t know, I ask.
Apparently that’s condescending, or something. I don’t know, and I guess I’m not going to find out from you.
Robert: I’ve been giving my answer all my life. You just don’t recognize the language I speak it in. It’s up to you to become a better listener.
Patriarchal reversals are kind of a combination of projection and fear on men’s part together with a heavy dose of blaming the victim, i.e.: “Feminists hate men.” In fact, a very good case can be made, based on how women have been treated throughout history, that men hate women. Our confrontations of male supremacist behavior do not evidence hatred; the acts we are confronting — rape, battery, incest, prostituting us — evidence that men have hated us.
Another example of a reversal is, “Feminism is a threat to the institution of marriage (or the traditional family, or traditional values, or whatever).” In fact, it’s the abusive behaviors of male supremacists which are responsible for feminist critique of marriage. The reversal is in blaming women for what men’s behaviors have caused.
Another would be, “Women are parasites.” In fact, men have been as dependent, or more dependent on women historically than the reverse. And of course, women were, until recently (and still in some parts of the world) not allowed, for example, to obtain educations, to work in the public sector and earn wages, to own property, to have custody of children. Women were chattel and forced to depend on men for food, shelter and protection, then were called “parasites” as though it was our decision to be owned by men.
* Accusing women of wanting to be raped is a reversal.
Religion is full of reversals, i.e.:
* The idea of being “born again” (via male deities) and “baptized” (a metaphor for birth) is a reversal; it is men’s attempt to appropriate the processes of pregnancy and birth so as to make them male.
* Eve being “born” from Adam’s rib is a reversal. Men do not give birth, women do.
* Veiling and enforced modesty have to do with reversals around the idea that an uncovered woman is “asking” to be raped or assaulted.
Reversals serve the purpose of mystifying and obscuring male power in the world, hiding it, making it invisible.
Heart
As to the questions about the abuse checklist, there is a certain relentlessness about abuse that makes it abusive. One instance of name-calling or mocking or being loud might not be abusive, but if this kind of thing happens all of the time, or regularly, or as part of a larger pattern of abusive behavior, then that’s abuse. And then, there are usually constellations of behaviors that make up abuse, i.e., in abusive relationships, several of the things on that list would likely be a problem.
As to “not taking care of oneself” and “people pleasing,” the reference there is to abusing substances, alcohol, or letting other people make your decisions for you in ways which cause issues for your partner in an ongoing, life-disrupting kind of way, i.e., the man who is at the beck and call of his friends or family members such that his wife never has any idea what is going to happen today or whether he’s going to be around, or on time, or whether people are going to show up expecting something (including from her), that kind of thing. It’s routinely treating a woman as though her life and time are unimportant, have no value, such that her personal life become chaotic because he’s drunk, stoned, strung out, totally unpredictable in his behavor (because he’s at the whim of other people.)
Heart
I have not said, ever, “All men are abusers,” present perfect. I have said, a couple of times — and I believe — that all men likely have abused, past perfect, a woman at some time or another. There’s a big difference. Men are often quick to say, “Not me,” and to point the finger at all the bad guys out there who abuse, not to include them. But that’s not women’s experience. Men do abuse women, in large numbers. Which is not the same thing as saying, “All men are abusers.”
As to the woman who is an individualist, it wasn’t individualism that bought you your rights as a woman, neither is it individualism which will preserve them for you or buy you the rights you still do not have. Feminists have done, are doing, and will continue to do that on your behalf, knowing there will always be women who benefit from our work who will pretend, like men, to be “self-made.”
Heart
Well, I wrote a post about reversals before I wrote any of the ones which appear, so maybe it will show up, in which case this post will be redundant, but nevertheless.
Reversals have to do with projection, with men’s fears, with blaming women for being victimized, and they also have to do with the appropriation of women’s lives and experiences in ways which obscure the realities of gendered power in the world.
Examples of reversals:
(1) Suggesting that rape victim wanted to be raped. Actually, the rapist wanted to rape the victim.
(2) Suggesting that feminists “hate men.” In fact, the evidence historically is that men have hated women, based on their willingness to buy and sell us, own us, deprive us of our civil and human rights, disfigure us, rape, incest, batter and prostitute us.
(3) Suggesting that feminists are responsible for the “breakdown in the traditional family.” The traditional family, in fact, under male supremacy, is responsible for countless numbers of broken human beings.
(4) Suggesting that women are vampires and leeches. In fact, women were historically deprived of the right to an education, to work in the public sphere, to own land, to own money, to have custody of their children. Describing those forced into servitude and dependence as “leeches” and “vampires” is a reversal, especially since in fact, men were the ones dependent on women for the services they provided.
Religion is full of reversals:
(1) The Adam and Eve story is an appropriation of women’s lives and experiences, i.e., a man “gives birth” to a woman.
(2) Being “born again” and baptized by male deities is a similar appropriation of women’s lives and experiences. Women give birth, babies emerge from water.
(3) Veiling has to do with, again, reversals around sexual assault. A covered woman is a woman who doesn’t want to be sexually assaulted or harassed; an uncovered woman wants to be sexually assaulted or harassed. When in fact, some men want to sexually assault and harass women and insisting on veiling helps them to curb their own violent impulses.
The purpose of reversals, again, is to mystify and obscure the operation of male power in the world, to make it hidden, invisible.
Heart
bean, thanks for your examples of male reversals. Gentlemen, read that.
Q Grrl, you said what I wanted to say on this thread and a whole lot better. Once again, showing is much better than telling, about a feminist issue, in this case separatism. Thanks for making a brilliant case at why it exists in feminism and for women. The women here were brilliant in their posts, but you outdid them with your pack mentality and your internalized(in some cases deeply internalized) sexism and sense of male entitlement. Gee, hope that was civil enough for you guys.
Lesson learned here: Before you go out in the big, bad world as the avenging superhero for oppressed women and slap what you deem, the real bad sexist men, on the wrist, think about your own internalized sexism, and your continual need to hold onto it and defend it as your birthright when women call you on it. Just like the big bad sexist males out there stick together against women who call them on their behavior, so do you, the “good” sexist men. And that just reeks of it being about two different groups of men, “good” and “bad”, fighting over the control of discourse involving women once again. Which as I’ve said, is OLD.
My heart is brightened by your admission of male privilage(which they sidestep by a convenient apology, before exercising it in the next breath…oh next line, it’s the internet) but you clearly don’t recognize your own, no matter how well you think you do. And you clearly don’t respect women’s ability to recognize sexism in men they interact with, because you believe, again as society has taught you, that men clearly know better.
Thanks, this has been very illuminating. Not so much for what has been said, but for what has been shown.
Clarification: Except for the first sentence in the second paragraph, which is addressed to Q Grrl, the rest of that paragraph is addressed to the gentlemen on this thread. What I said, is that Q Grrl and other women here brilliantly made their points. The men here outdid them by showing through their behavior, why it was important for these women to make those points.
When I see messages attacking Ampersand and others as sexist, because we were using male privilege to post messages of support for opponents of sexism, I have to conclude that this discussion has become absurd.
No Foolishowl, it isn’t absurd. The men here just want to define sexism in a way that makes them look good. That’s absurd.
Heart, to be honest I was not expecting you to reply to my comment. We are coming from such vastly different paradigms that it’s hard to see how we can communicate. And for the same reason I’m hesitant to reply to you.
I am grateful to feminism and I have benefitted from its many achievements. That doesn’t change the fact that you and many of the other feminist posters on this thread are discussing a reality that has absolutely no connection with my own experience. I am also grateful to the people, many of whom were men, who created a political and technological reality that I am comfortable living in.
I am trying to digest your distinction between “All men are abusers” and “All men have abused [women]”. The more I think about it the more I’m convinced I would rather give up my right to vote than my right to have loving human relationships irrespective of gender. Personally, I do not believe that rights for women are incompatible with respect for men.
There are men in my life I love very much, men who have been immeasurably generous to me when I needed it. I find it hard to classify their kindness as sexist and patriarchal, let alone blame them for the fact that other men have abused other women. The importance I attach to individualism does not mean I believe I can live without other people. I owe much to various people, both male and female, and it is my aim to be equally generous to the people who need me in my turn.
I guess that’s another fine example: if you can’t comprehend your opponent’s argument, simply construct a caricature of it, and declare it “absurd.” Because using ridicule to dismiss what women are telling you, rather than listening to what they actually say, is such a novel approach, right?
The basic attitude here is not entirely unlike novalis’ original assertion that it’s not “acceptable”? for women to exercise freedom of association. Just invoke your own godlike powers to set the rules of discourse, then sit in judgment of the discourse itself. Of course, declare what is and isn’t “reasonable”? based on your own subjective criteria, which you naturally present as “objective”? and hence inherently superior.
The domineering stances assumed by the men here preclude any hope of reasonable discussion across power imbalances. You can’t Have reasonable discussion with someone who imagines his own prejudices to be infallible, his own standards to be universal, and his own experiences definitive of the human condition. This has been the problem all along in discussions between those with power and those without: between rich and poor, white and minority, male and female. To go through the world without having your core truths seriously challenged is a mark of privilege, but it also makes you impossible to talk to. You never learned to listen to the kinds of things that are being said here, because you never had to. And when you insist that discussion happen on your terms, or not at all, you’re showing us a sense of entitlement that it’s hard not to notice.
Just to clarify:
I wrote post #175 not in response to Individ-ewe-al’s post #174, but the exchange that preceded it
That doesn’t change the fact that you and many of the other feminist posters on this thread are discussing a reality that has absolutely no connection with my own experience.
How could the following not have connection with your own experience:
* Millions of women raped, assaulted, incested every year, by men, including in genocide, including as a war crime
* Thousands of girls and women sold into sexual slavery and prostituted by men
* Thousands of women battered and killed by their husbands every year
* Women degraded, humiliated, objectified in every imaginable way in pornography, including extreme forms of pornography, including snuff
That’s enough for now. How do all of the above– crimes against your kind by men– have “no connection with your experience?” What– because they aren’t *you*? Because you have some special dispensation which will protect you or women you love from this fate? Because so far no woman you love has been hurt or destroyed in these ways? How does this kind of disconnect you speak of develop for a woman, that she can see male supremacist brutality, and the evidence of it, all around her, and yet say, with a straight face, “This is unconnected with my reality.”
Because even if you haven’t experienced these things, women like you have. How is that you can be so complacent about something so immense? And my question is rhetorical, actually, you don’t have to answer it. If there weren’t so many women who disconnect as you disconnect, the world would be a different place, and I am convinced that none of you is being deliberately heartless and cruel. I think your disconnection has something to do with survival, I’ve been there, I understand it, but I have to challenge it whenever I see it.
I am trying to digest your distinction between “All men are abusers”? and “All men have abused [women]”.
I don’t think all men are engaged in abusing women right this minute. But I think it is *likely* that all *have*, at some time, abused women in some of the ways I’ve listed.
The more I think about it the more I’m convinced I would rather give up my right to vote than my right to have loving human relationships irrespective of gender.
Who suggested you should? Not me. But more in response to this at the bottom of this post.
Personally, I do not believe that rights for women are incompatible with respect for men.
Who said they were? I can respect men for the good that they have done while STILL asserting, correctly, that they have likely abused women, because that is the nature of life under male supremacy. I respect the hell out of Martin Luther King, but I also know he abused the women in his life. I respect Gandhi, but I also know he violated the women in his life. I respect Jesus of Nazareth and I think he mistreated women. I respect John Stoltenberg, Robert Jensen, and Jackson Katz, all alies to feminist women if there ever were any, very fine men who have given a lot of themselves, for example, to anti-pornography, anti-sex-slavery, anti-rape, anti-male-violence work. But at least Stoltenberg and Jensen *cop* to having abused the women in their lives. Yes, I respect them all. And yes, they abused women. That’s the sad reality.
There are men in my life I love very much, men who have been immeasurably generous to me when I needed it.
Why do you feel it is important to assert this. Do you think that I, or other women here, have not had men in our lives we have loved very much and who have been immeasurably generous to us when we needed it? Of course we have. And those men, at other times, may also have *abused* us! One reason male supremacy persists is that it is not relentlessly abusive. Once in a while, women, individually or corporately, get thrown a bone and so we continue on, believing the best about the men in our lives, as though our lives depended on it, because you know what? For many of us, our lives *do*. Our stake in the male supremacist system is our *complicity* with it. We break from it, most of us, maybe all of us, at our own peril, we suffer for it. Much easier, much better, to hold onto the bones as though they are more than just… bones.
I find it hard to classify their kindness as sexist and patriarchal, let alone blame them for the fact that other men have abused other women.
So would I. So why should you? Kindness isn’t sexist and patriarchal. Sexism is sexist and patriarchal. A man can be kind and sexist and patriarchal, all at the same time. And I am not holding any man accountable for any other man’s abuse. I am holding men accountable for their *own* abuse and for how *other* men’s abuse works to privilege them, benefits them, in lots of ways.
Here is a paragraph I am hoping you, and those who think like you, will read:
“”The politico-feminist split is a real one, one that will vanish as soon as we accept ourselves as women first of all, but which will continue to divide us until we share that consciousness. It is you leftists, you male-identified socialist and liberal and pacifist and Weather-sympathizing women, who try to deny any significant difference between male politics and feminist politics. ‘We’re all just women,’ you say, and we are–but to you that is a phenomenon of the most peripheral possible interest, indeed it only seems to occur to you when under fire from the feminists. As long as you are letting men define your attitudes, behavior, and standards, then we stand on opposite sides of a line all too visible to me spite of your blindness to it, but which I know you too will see once you have crossed it. And to cross it you need do only one thing: let your own self-interest be your highest priority. I am not asking you to stop loving men, or to break all personal and emotional ties with the men who are important to you. I know that those ties are never broken out of a simplistic political decision but only when and if consciousness of oppression makes them so inconsistent with self-respect that they can no longer be borne. Even then it is with enormous pain and grief and in spite of an ever-reluctant part of ourselves that we separate from men we have cared for. I firmly believe that one can be a serious feminist and still live with and relate to a man and to men. The gulf that is between us is not that, but rather that you allow men to rule on your politics.”
Heart
I hope Heart won’t mind if I just add that the author of the quote is Jane Alpert.
“The domineering stances assumed by the men here preclude any hope of reasonable discussion across power imbalances. You can’t Have reasonable discussion with someone who imagines his own prejudices to be infallible, his own standards to be universal, and his own experiences definitive of the human condition. This has been the problem all along in discussions between those with power and those without: between rich and poor, white and minority, male and female. To go through the world without having your core truths seriously challenged is a mark of privilege, but it also makes you impossible to talk to. You never learned to listen to the kinds of things that are being said here, because you never had to. And when you insist that discussion happen on your terms, or not at all, you’re showing us a sense of entitlement that it’s hard not to notice. ”
—–Source of quote is Molly, post #175
What she said.
Oh, and absurd is having to listen to men lecture women about sexism in as Q Grrl said, a way that makes them look good and absolves them of responsibility for their own behavior even while they try to place restrictions on women’s reactions to their sexism.
The domineering stances assumed by the men here preclude any hope of reasonable discussion across power imbalances. You can’t Have reasonable discussion with someone who imagines his own prejudices to be infallible, his own standards to be universal, and his own experiences definitive of the human condition.
I don’t know. I had thought that I asked questions in order to understand better the subject of separatism. Was my participations not reasonable? Did I imagine my opinions to be infallible? I am glad that both Heart and Q Grrl answered my questions and helped me to learn something new. I may not agree 100% with some of the opinions and beliefs expressed by them and others, but I certainly tried not to invalidate them. Am I mistaken? Did I attempt to invalidate the opinions of Heart & Q Grrl on the subject of separatism. If so, how could I have better phrased my questions?
I’m sorry that you feel this way and seem to not want to take part in this discussion any longer. For me it will be a lost opportunity to learn more about the philosophies & tenets & views aired in these many comments.
It is very difficult to keep one’s composure and discuss differences in a way that both educates and doesn’t seem insulting to the other side when one feels that the very foundations of one’s belief system are being questioned.
OK, here’s what Mary Daly thinks reversal means:
So, a reversal, by Daly’s definition, is simple hypocrisy, when performed by a patriarch. Let’s see how she uses the word:
I don’t think this use matches her definition. The closest I can come to a match is to interpret this as saying that for Jesus to be a man and for the myth around him to be inspired by a pre-patriarchal myth is hypocritical. However, it’s not; the concept of asexual reproduction does not preclude maleness, especially as a special case. Christianity isn’t claiming to be female while in fact being male (or visa-versa).
But since it’s so profoundly ahistorical anyway, it doesn’t really matter. It’s ahistorical because Christianity arose among Jews, and Judaism of that era was profoundly patriarchal: one, male god, access controlled by priests (male), women considered unclean, etc. It then spread to the Romans, whose chief deity (borrowed from the Greeks) was a serial rapist. It might be that the Trinity draws inspiration from a three-fold goddess, but since Daly below espouses a view of religion which is non-proprietary (see below), she can’t rightly complain about this. Also, the Trinity is, from my admittedly atheistic perspective, basically a hack around the idea that Christianity accidentally ended up as a monotheistic religion with three major gods.
This passage says that there is a goddess named Trivia, whose very name in English is an attack on the idea of mystery cults. OK, I understand this, and I’m no big fan of mystery cults myself. But why mystery cults are necessarily patriarchal, I don’t know. They probably were historically limited to males, but then, so was nearly everything else. And how they’re a reversal as defined above, I have no idea.
Heart, I can’t find a common thread in your examples except that of men justifying oppression of women by denying facts about the world (or denying falsely that they are oppressing women). Is this the whole of your definition, or is there more to it? I’m trying to be charitable here, but as I noted above, it’s sufficiently hard to generate rules from examples that someone has built a game around it.
If this is it, I reject that I have engaged in reversals by Heart’s definition (and, of course, by bean’s and Mary Daly’s).
I don’t think Heart has claimed that I’ve engaged in reversals. Some of the other posters here have. Do you claim that a disagreement about the issue of separatism (or whateve you call what Heart does) rise to the level of justifying oppression? If you think so, to claim that I have engaged in reversal is merely to repeat your conclusion, rather than to provide new evidence.
Radfem, in this case, showing is much worse than telling, since I have no idea what your argument is at all. When you say ask me to “respect women’s ability to recognize sexism in men they interact with,” you’re asking me to trust your judgements over my own. As I note in previous messages, this proves too much: why shouldn’t men ask you to respect men’s ability to recognize sexism in themselves? Instead, why not tell us about the exact behavior you consider sexist, and why you consider it sexist? Heart’s examples of reversals constitute a great example of this. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you need to explain to them why you believe what you believe. If you don’t want or need to convince anyone of anything, why are you even commenting on this particular discussion?
“Radfem, in this case, showing is much worse than telling, since I have no idea what your argument is at all. When you say ask me to “respect women’s ability to recognize sexism in men they interact with,”? you’re asking me to trust your judgements over my own. As I note in previous messages, this proves too much: why shouldn’t men ask you to respect men’s ability to recognize sexism in themselves? Instead, why not tell us about the exact behavior you consider sexist, and why you consider it sexist? Heart’s examples of reversals constitute a great example of this. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you need to explain to them why you believe what you believe. If you don’t want or need to convince anyone of anything, why are you even commenting on this particular discussion? ”
I’m not at all surprised you have no idea what my argument is and no, I will not justify my reasons for being here. That’s another patriarchal dodge any woman can sniff a mile away. I tried respecting your right as men to recognize sexism, but you failed so many litmas tests on this thread already, lol, you have no capability of recognizing your own sexism, so how does that make you an expert on sexism, in general? What entitles you to explain to women what sexism is and what it isn’t? Nada.
Especially since you’re not really listening to what women here are saying and giving any credence at all to what they define as sexism, especially when it makes you uncomfortable. Privilage brings with it, the ability to avoid what discomforts you, after all.
Gee, I’m sorry that having sexism explained to you is too much, and apparently excruciatingly painful. Try experiencing it. I’m not hear to teach you anything, especially since you’re here to teach about what sexism is, not learn about it from women. This thread would be a total waste of time, weren’t for the women who’ve posted amazing stuff, maybe some day you’ll actually understand part of it and actually be able to rise up to the level of participating in an honest discussion on this issue.
P.s. That day obviously, is not today, however….
(I believe this is where someone reminds us that this conversation is to be civil….as a neutral party of course, although who was it that said, neutrality is the friend of the oppressor?)
Damn. What a freaking mess.
Great posts Alsis, Molly, Hearrt, Radfem and Qgrrrl, just rocking.
A big Yes to comment # 155 from QGrrl.
Novalis, those are not Mary Daly’s definitions of patriarchal reversals. I know what those definitions are but didn’t post them because I wanted to explain reversals in ways folks here, men especially, would easily understand. Instead of thinking a bit deeply here, you’ve attempted, Novalis, to divide us as women.
Um, nope.
We’ve all given you, and men in general, so much here. More than you deserve. You can think deeply about it, or not. That’s entirely up to you.
Great posts, radfem, Molly, alsis, Q-grrl, all of you, LittleViolet, Samantha. You all rock, just want you to know. If we’re not heard here, it’s not because we haven’t been very, very careful to let what we believe be known.
Heart
Heart,
Heart said (post #168):
“I have not said, ever, “All men are abusers,”? present perfect. I have said, a couple of times ““ and I believe ““ that all men likely have abused, past perfect, a woman at some time or another. There’s a big difference. Men are often quick to say, “Not me,”? and to point the finger at all the bad guys out there who abuse, not to include them. But that’s not women’s experience. Men do abuse women, in large numbers. Which is not the same thing as saying, “All men are abusers.”?”
Heart said (post #167):
“As to the questions about the abuse checklist, there is a certain relentlessness about abuse that makes it abusive. One instance of name-calling or mocking or being loud might not be abusive, but if this kind of thing happens all of the time, or regularly, or as part of a larger pattern of abusive behavior, then that’s abuse. And then, there are usually constellations of behaviors that make up abuse, i.e., in abusive relationships, several of the things on that list would likely be a problem.”
Don’t you feel that there is a contradiction, or at least a tension, between your two quotes. In the first you seem to be using abuse in a politicised, and for me very discomfiting sense, as a neccessary consequence of male-female relations in patriarchal society. In the second quote you take a different definition of abuse; abuse is something that is defined both by intent and by the repetition or conjunction of specific types of behaviours. My reading of the two quotes is that the first is a politicised definition of abuse, whereas the second is a practical one.
For it to be reasonable to state that all men have abused women, presumably they must fulfil the explicit definition of abuse in your second quote or alternately the definition in your first (although I’m somewhat unclear what the precise contours of that definition would be.) Whilst I guess it’s debatable, it seems unlikely to me that as an empirical fact all men have at some point fulfilled your second definition of abuse (unless you start defining single or occasional incidences of the items on your checklist as abuse.) If (and I guess it’s a big if) you’d accept the previous sentence then I’d see two alternatives that could satisfy your statement that all men have abused women:
1. It’s a lifetime statement- essentially a prediction that under current social circumstances all men will at some point abuse a woman in a similar fashion to that described in quote 2.
2. It relies on a different definition of abuse from the explicit definition used in your second quote.
Again, although you may well disagree, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that not all men will fulfil the more explicit definition of abuse at some point in their lives. I accept that all men will probably at some point evince aspects of behaviour that in the context of appropriate intent or in conjunction with other behaviours would be defined as abuse, but this statement doesn’t approach the finality of ‘all men likely have abused… a woman.’
[Please note that in much of the rest of this argument I’m extrapolating from what you’ve said, so sorry if I end up misrepresenting you in some way.]
So, the only way I can see that such behaviours could be defined as abusive would be if you accept patriarchy as being a sufficient behavioural context to lend an abusive cast to scattered or occasional abuse behaviours. I’d see the logic of that argument as working something like this: Patriarchal power relations allow men to be blithe to their privilege and so occasional abuse type behaviours placed in the context of women’s relative powerlessness and men’s power (and privilege to naturalise or ignore that power) come to be abusive. This, though, is essentially a slippage to a different definition of abuse, one that relies on a particular analysis of a political structure and situation. This politicised definition is one that I find a problem.
For me the politicised definition of abuse defines abuse down to an extent that seems amoral. I strongly feel that it’s worth preserving the term abuse for relationships and actions that are clearly morally wrong- taking that term and applying it in a politicised fashion obscures the real differences in character between explicit abuse and abuse in the context of patriarchy. Using the same word to describe beating your partner and simply being ignorant of power dynamics that might lend an abusive cast to occasional instances of acting like an ass seems deliberately obtuse. Those two situations are not the same and using the same language obscures the fact that both require very different remedies and responses and cuts out the importance of intent in asessing actions. You talk about the importance of not allowing men to get away with abusive behaviours by pointing at the really bad abusers\batterers (essentially defining abuse so as to exclude their own behaviour,) but the corollorary of that is that you don’t allow abuse to be defined in such a way that it becomes effectively meaningless due to the overlarge spectrum of people it captures. Anyway, as I’m not sure I’m following the same train of thought as you, I guess I’ll stop here for now.
Tarn
Novalis: :So, a reversal, by Daly’s definition, is simple hypocrisy, when performed by a patriarch. Let’s see how she uses the word”
Me: Simple hypocrisy is about as far away from what Daly means as is possible. Although, in and of itself, your use of the phrase is a reversal (!)
What she meant and how it is used is: men create myths, paradigms, versions of the truth, versions of rationality which are blatent reversals of women’s experiences — the purpose of which is to maintain the gendered power hierarchy and women’s subordination. Two historical reversals are Athena’s birth from Zeus’ head and the co-optation of Mary’s womb/vagina for the “birth” of Jesus. Men’s myth-making subordinates the very real, very natural, and very powerful experience of women’s birthing. It takes this uniquely females experience and names it, through myth, as a male experience, divine at that! Henceforth, women’s real experience with birthing becomes in popular opinion debased, diseased, shameful. Afterall, the myth making also makes it clear that women lack the mental and spiritual aspects of the male and cannot attain even the smallest of relationships with divinity (i.e, the use of the word hysterical to describe women, its root being the womb. In men, the womb is God-like. In women, the womb is sinful). That is a reversal of reality. Served up to bolster patriarchal belief systems.
The reversal in this thread is the proposition that women are discriminating against men based “solely” on their gender when women create women-only space. The reversal in this claim is the historical, well-documented, thousands of years old practice of excluding women from: education, churches, government, war, cultural decision-making, the arts. I could go on. The reversal is that instead of the men here doing something concrete to decrease the length of my (women’s) list of exclusions, they find it much more politically and theoretically salient to argue that their exclusion from one message board is discrimination and, gasp!, unfair. Go figure.
Novalis: “Instead, why not tell us about the exact behavior you consider sexist, and why you consider it sexist?”
Constantly asking women to clarify what they have already been clear about is sexist. It is a tactic used to discredit women’s experiences. Constantly insisting that women’s experiences are not valid, or that men require more proof before they will trust women’s judgement is sexist.
Every post that I have written has specified sexist acts and attitudes. Every one. Yet you insist you don’t get it. All behaviors by men in a patriarchal society are sexist. How ’bout starting with that one (although I’m sure you will parse out the actions of “good guys” and claim that I’m “judging”). Feminism doesn’t look at individual men and individual women and say action A is sexist and action B is only mildly offensive and action C is hunky dorey. What feminism does (if you bother to read the theory) is look at systems (political, economic, belief), paradigms, the power hierarchy of gendered society. It posits that women are a class and are affected by the class behaviors of men that serve to subordinate women.
Radfem, Alsis, Q, Bean et al. thankyou for your posts. And Heart. Wow. I never cease to be amazed over how much I’ve learned from you, and continue to learn, over the years. Thankyou. “Not very bright”. Heh. I wish I was a third as bright…. :)
All behaviors by men in a patriarchal society are sexist”It also requires cultural blinders larger than the state ofTexas to be able to **not see** the social and personal necessity of women only space.”
I don’t think that I have cultural blinders, at least not when it comes to sexism or feminism. Just because I see thinks differently than you do does not make my feminism lesser or suspect. I certainly hope that ‘s not what you meant.
“Of course you don’t see it as offensive: you’ve been socially conditioned not to. Fuck. How do you call yourself a feminist again?”
While I also take issue with some of novalis’ arguments, I take more issue with attacking Ampersand’s feminism! I don’t think that his feminism should be disputed even if you disagree with his analysis or think that he is missing something on this issue. I don’t know all the technical terms for arguments, but I do know that is completely out of line!
“…instead of the men here doing something concrete…”
“I tried respecting your right as men to recognize sexism, but you failed so many litmas [sic] tests on this thread already…”
There have been quite a few comments here from various posters that are lumping together all the men. Do we really not want to distinguish piny from nomen from jake squid from robert? They have made radically different comments that deserve very different responses. Lumping them all together as sexist men seems to me as patently wrong as lumping us together as, say, spatially -challenged women (bad analogy, I know, but the Harvard thing has been on my mind).
As for “civility and tone”, I agree that in other forums that those unneutral concepts has been used to oppress women. However, I do agree with Robert (and wow, is that a first!) that the post he objected to was below the belt arguing. There are a few posters here, both women and men, that I see lashing out unfairly at times.
On the flip side of that coin, I have to note that Heart’s posts are really beginning to win me over. Her “civility” and thoughtfulness is prompting me to examine and empathize with her beliefs in ways I would not be able to with undly hostile posters. Thank you, Heart. You have given me much to think about.
Whatever. It’s not about who has the better feminism. It’s whether it can be legitimately called feminism if all it does is support antifeminist men.
And thank you kindly, I’ll lump as I like. You don’t seem to be calling the men on it when they do it.
Due to the wacky stuff going on when I try to post, the line “All behaviors by men in a patriarchal society are sexist” appeared at the beginning of my post. It was NOT meant to be there, and not part of the argument. (If anyone gives two figs, I quite strongly disagree with it, despite my strong feminism. )
What is up with the double lines when I post?
“I don’t know all the technical terms for arguments, but I do know that is completely out of line!”
Why is it that a WOMAN can’t challange a man’s feminism?? Why? Whose line is it out of? The men’s? The patriarchally raised men’s? Please. If his feminism is not supporting me, or my sisters, I have every right to say so. Every right, civility be damned.
… and again, as far as the lumping. Yes, I’ve deliberately lumped all the men here, despite their individual posts, b/c they did nothing to critique each other’s behavior and everything to critique the women’s feminist beliefs (and posting styles). *That* is precisely the type of sexist behavior/ideology that I like to point out. Those little intangibles that the men don’t notice because of their privilege. Is it unfair? Depends on whose value system “fair” rests. If men aren’t willing to take on the heavy work of engaging each other and challenging each other on feminist grounds, then fair isn’t really relative is it? If men would rather claim they are feminists and then attack the women… well is that fair? or is that just par for the course, status quo behavior, and acceptable because it is cloaked in civility?
Hmmm….is this the part where we all bring out our feminist credentials? Well, the women anyway…
I hope not radfem. That’s not at all where I’m going, nor what I believe in.
Sorry, emma. By buying into male-defined notions of civility, you’ve established yourself as beyond the pale. Politeness is a male tactic of oppression. (See you at the oppressor’s club meeting; as the newbie, you have to bring the beer. You can split with Amp, though.)
I wouldn’t characterize the discussion as “absurd”. It’s more sad; women devoting their energy to ripping the people who are on their side, whether on this separatist-space question or on all or most issues. Feminism seems to spend so much time on burning heretics and pushing itself to the margins. Never mind those enemies; it’s these bastard so-called “friends” we have to kill.
But that’s just my view. I don’t pretend that it has universal application, although I imagine that someone will now characterize my temerity in having an opinion as a demand that women modify their behavior.
“Whatever. It’s not about who has the better feminism. It’s whether it can be legitimately called feminism if all it does is support antifeminist men.
And thank you kindly, I’ll lump as I like. You don’t seem to be calling the men on it when they do it.”
Q-grrl,
I do not wish to attack you. I am sorry if you felt attacked. I am not against you, and in fact honor your beliefs. The last thing I want to do is cause division amongst feminists so that anti-feminists can use it against us. But what you just wrote is unacceptable. My feminism does NOT only support antifeminist men. You saying that only slurs me (in a very ineffective way), rather than contributing to discussion. I object to that treatment.
How have the men lumped us all together? (I ask that sincerely, not rhetorically!) If you can show me, I will definitely take the men responsible to task for it, I assure you.
Sorry emma, I wasn’t clear. I’m not talking about you. I was talking about men whose version of feminism is more in support of antifeminists than it is of women.
I feel the men have lumped us here by not bothering to read what we have actually written. Robert’s post right above yours is a good example. He’s still hung up on us questioning civility… when he could actually read what we have said about why civility is a patriarchal tool. But no, he’d rather lump us as the divisive feminists.
How have the men lumped us all together?
Example 1: “Feminism seems to spend so much time on burning heretics and pushing itself to the margins. Never mind those enemies; it’s these bastard so-called “friends”? we have to kill.” Robert
Now, if only I had a torch…
“Individuality is great, but it’s a white male thing, b/c white men are one of the few classes of people who have the luxury of being treated as individuals by society. ”
God Radfem: I really, really love you.
And can I just add that I’m fed to the teeth of this overemphasis on individuality that I’m hearing in any argument about social problems these days? I do have a healthy concern for maintaining a reasonable level of respect for the rights of the individual, but the older I get, the more I realise that these must be balanced against the rights of groups, ESPECIALLY minority or minoritised groups.
Also, trying to bring everything down to the level of “you can’t judge people as members of a group, you have to see everyone as an individual” only serves to shorcircuit our ability to deal with issues of power & privilege: no wonder the people we hear insisting on this the most are usually from a dominant, powerful group.
And please, trying to guilt Heart (and indeed any other advocate of women-only space) by claims of hurt feelings………..come on. Most women have to put up with having our feelings hurt–often quite badly–on a daily basis. And, if we have even the slightest glimmers of a feminist consciousness, this happens at least several times each day. And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the suffering that has led to many women’s feeling the need for women-only space. So, please, don’t expect me to shed a tear over a man’s hurt feelings over his sense of being excluded from a freaking internet forum due to his biological sex when most of us women have had to deal with far, far worse in our lives. If that sort of exclusion were the most insulting thing to happen to me this week, I’d feel damn lucky.
Look, if you want to “lump” me in w/ all the other men posting here, that’s fine. This is probably my first exposure to radical feminism (if that is the right term) theory & philosophy. My goal here is to learn something new. And I have learned something new about at least one thing. Should I be condemning Robert & Novalis & Nomen & Amp? I don’t know. I know that several of you think that I should be, but I’m not certain why. Given my lack of knowledge about the issue, what you find insulting or sexist in (most of) their comments is probably going over my head. Besides which, I have my own goals here and berating those other posters is only going to distract from my ability to reach those goals.
If you want to attempt to educate me as to why I should critique the posts of others, I’m listening. If you don’t think that I am capable of learning or don’t care to educate me on your beliefs then I’m not sure why you are posting here.
I’m fairly certain that at least one of you is going to find something in this comment that fits into the patriarchal reversal mold, but I have no idea what it is. If you want to tell me, I’m listening.
Q Grrl, when I read what you write and have questions or don’t understand something, you become rude and noncommunicative. When I ask you civil questions about the implications of your statements, in good faith, seeking to better understand your position, you come back with snideness & snark.
Why, exactly, would you expect me (or anyone) to attempt to read you more closely? Whether male or female, feminist or reactionary, social communication requires effort from all parties. You obviously don’t want to put in the effort, at least where [some?] men are concerned; what, other than your apparently boundless sense of self-righteous entitlement, leads you to think men should fall over themselves trying to decipher your self-congratulatory or cryptic commentary?
Divergent world views create high transaction costs in explaining things and seeking out common ground. Personally, although I have a lot of disagreements with many feminists, I am always grateful when someone is willing to pay part of those costs, and do the necessarily patient work of explaining what they mean (and of course I am glad to do the same amount of work; climbing up my side of the hill, as it were).
So I’m not blowing you off as a “divisive feminist”; some of my best friends are divisive feminists. I’m blowing you off as someone who either doesn’t know how to communicate, or doesn’t desire to.
Robert: I haven’t taken your questions in “good faith” for some while now. You’ve proven yourself here that you aren’t in “good faith” — at least to my way of thinking. If you think that I am a poor communicator with nothing to say, then I find it hard to think of what saying something must mean to you.
Jake: I appreciate your earnestness — even while lumping you! You said someone would probably find something in your post to point out, and yes, you are right. You talk about “condemning” the other males. Your use of that word is telling. It tells me that you think the feminists here are doing just that. What I did say was that the men need to critique and take to task (both of which speak to a learning environment, rather than a judgemental condemnation).
You also say this: “Besides which, I have my own goals here and berating those other posters is only going to distract from my ability to reach those goals.”
That’s a worthy goal, for an individual. The difference between you as a man writing that and me as a woman writing everything that I have is that my life is not a goal. It is a lived reality, heavily influenced and affected by male sexism and blindness to male privilege. I am not a theory. Neither are my sisters. We aren’t talking pie in the sky here. We’re talking about our experiences and the commonalities that connect our individuality into a class conciousness. Unfortunately the commonalities lie heaviest along the sexism we have experienced. So you may not “get” it on a personal level (even though you have been socialized to “give” it), but women get it, all too clearly — we see patterns and behaviors and we try to name them. And there is considerable damage control from men when we do name what we are getting. The closer we get to the truth, the more we are told that we aren’t making sense. [see Robert’s posts to me, for example].
Crys T , thanks for #201!! I had totally missed that line from Radfem, which so sums up the BS that is going on here.
Why, exactly, would you expect me (or anyone) to attempt to read you more closely?
Well, since most of the women here are reading her posts, and agreeing with them, I’d say that’s a damn good reason for you to give her posts a better read.
The closer we get to the truth, the more we are told that we aren’t making sense.
It seems to me that you aren’t making sense to those who have said so. Why? Because you are writing from a completely different point of view than those people. Because to Robert (for example) the things you are saying don’t jibe with what he knows and the way he thinks. I’ve read some comments here that don’t make sense to me. A major reason that I haven’t told anyone here that they don’t make sense is because I am trying to understand what and why you are saying it while Robert (for example, again) is trying to argue why what you are saying is incorrect.
Sure, at the moment & with the knowledge that I have, there are certain things that I’ve read here that I think are downright loopy & wrong. But what’s the point of my saying anything about it? You’re sure that you are correct & my opinion isn’t going to matter. Especially when my opinion is uninformed in terms of your belief system.
I think that it is obvious to you that I have had some difficulty understanding some of the concepts that you view as the basis of your mode of thinking. So what did I do? I asked questions. Maybe when I have a firmer grasp of how and why you think and believe what you do I’ll have some valid points to make about things that I don’t agree with. And maybe I’ll no longer think that those things that I currently find to be wrong are wrong.
…my life is not a goal.
I wasn’t viewing your life as a goal (mine or yours). But we each do have goals in our lives. I’m guessing that one of your goals (not necessarily a major nor important goal) may be to educate women and men as to the realities of women’s lives in a patriachal system and what might be done to change things, given the time that you took to answer my questions about separatism.
But all in all, I have really gotten a lot out of this thread (some knowledge, some questions, some resources).
while Robert (for example, again) is trying to argue why what you are saying is incorrect.
I like being the example (pay attention to me! me! meeeee!) but I haven’t argued against what QGrrl has said. I haven’t understood some of what she’s said, or have sought clarification of her meaning. With, alas, predictable results.