(The cartoon these folks are discussing can be read here.)
Laurie and Debbie at Body Impolitic (a blog I’m a fan of) argue that the cartoon is “the politics of hypersimplification.”
…The reason the two characters in the cartoon appear to agree is that their positions are hypersimplified. We seem to be living in a time where most political/social/gender opinions and expectations have been reduced not just to the sound bite but to the bumper sticker. Oversimplified opinions lead to false agreement and false disagreement.
Piny at Feministe responds:
Radical-feminist transphobia is not distinguishable from conservative Christian transphobia because they’re both transphobia. I hate to be as uncharitable as Amp here, but my experience has borne that out in many cases: tap the facade of philosophy and/or tradition and it cracks to reveal a deep and powerful current of simple hatred. All of the positions argued by the characters in the cartoon are shortened, but they’re not actually all that hyperbolic, and they don’t actually distinguish themselves in the longer version; take the “silencing/transsexual agenda” concurrence, for example.
In the comments at Feministe, Brooklynite writes:
Yes, there’s a lot of transphobia out in the world at large, but it seems to me that the point of this cartoon is that the two characters share an ideological commitment to an essentialist understanding of gender, and that their transphobia is nurtured by, even rooted in, this essentialism.
That is very much what I was trying to get at in the cartoon.
Meanwhile, Littoral Mermaid suggests that I’m beating a straw radical feminist. She and I debate the question in her comments. Other comments on this post range from a smart criticism from Cellycel (whose blog I like, mainly because it’s well-written, but also because it includes references to role-playing games and “Avenue Q“) to impressively venal anti-fat bigotry from someone whose name I’ve forgotten.
Anyway, here’s a quote from my exchange with Cellycel:
Why compare it to the Christian right? Isn’t transphobia bad because of things like say, oppression and discrimination? Not “Because Conservative Christians thing it’s bad, so it must be good. Also radical feminists agree with conservative Christians. That makes radical feminists bad.”
I think this is the most substantive criticism of the cartoon I’ve seen so far. (A few people have made it, including my “Alas” co-blogger Maia). The cartoon would have been better if it had somehow closed off this interpretation.
My intent with this cartoon wasn’t “conservative Christians are bad, therefore anyone who agrees with them on anything is bad.” That would be a ridiculous argument (is giving to charity bad because Christians do it?), and it’s not what I believe.
My intended point was that transphobia is wrong no matter who the speaker is; and that if these arguments are bigoted when they’re coming out of a conservative Christian’s mouth, then they are still bigoted when they are spoken by feminists.
Well, there you go getting all accurate and nuanced.
I demand sweeping generalizations!
—Myca
Laugh! You kick ass.
Eliza,
Thanks for coming over. I can’t speak for Amp, and I don’t know whether I’m one of the commenters you characterize as anti-radfem — which I don’t think I am, although I can see where one would read me as being so if one were only looking at this issue.
Here’s my take:
Transphobia’s just not okay, in the same way that racism is not okay. It is bigotry. Therefore, justifications of it — which are justifications of bigotry — are going to be really hard to phrase in such a way so that they come across in a way that doesn’t necessitate harsh response.
Additionally, much of the rebuttal to the cartoon has taken teh form of “Amp sucks and is a pornographer,” which… you know, has very little to do with the argument put forth.
If you can express an opinion, while avoiding actually bigoted statements (transpeople need straightjackets; transwomen are lurking in bathrooms waiting to wave their penises at us) and while not basing your argument in “Amp suxxors” then it seems to me that you’re welcome to speak here. Though you’re not entitled to agreement, obviously.
If you are interested in vacating this space to put up a post explaining how you feel about gender essentialism, or transsexuality, or whatever, I hope that you will do so and give us a link, whether or not you’re interested in inviting commenters from this particular sandbox to go play in yours. I, for one, am genuinely interested in reading opinions that avoid pitfalls 1 and 2 above.
belledame222 Writes:
“That said: besides everything else, there are different strains of radical feminism, and it’s not all synonymous with “cultural feminism,” which is i think what’s really at the heart of this sort of sexual Slytherinism or whatever it is.”
Well, yes, anybody who’s made a cursory reading of Alice Echols knows this was true historically. Hell, radical feminism, in the broad sense, was the intellectual foremother of sex-positive feminism. (Ellen Willis, co-founder of Redstockings, even coined the very term “pro-sex feminism”.) They brought the whole sex and oh-my-god-lezbianz issue to the table at a time when Betty Friedan was trying to distance feminism from that as much as possible.
But that’s the history, and that’s not where were at right now. Self-professed “radical feminism” today almost always means in the tradition of Dworkin, Morgan, Jeffreys, Daly, etc. (And I realize that there’s some division between Dalyite cultural feminism and the less drawing-down-the-moon/more politico types.) Feminists who draw on early radical feminist authors but reject Dworkin, etc are largely not calling themselves radical feminists at this point in history, at least as far as I’ve seen. (Correct me if I’m wrong on this point.)
And, yes, there still actually is a Redstockings (with a website, even), which is radical feminist and explicitly anti-cultural feminism, but that group consists of precisely three members, last I heard.
Not to beat to a dead horse (which had already been flogged before the comment was made):
Those radfems who are transphobic are transphobic for ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reasons than those who are transphobic for religious reasons.
1. It’s hardly a criticism of the cartoon, which, far from denying it, is predicated on the irony that people from ostensibly different ideological backgrounds should converge on the same bigotry. There’d be no joke if the characters were otherwise ideologically identical.
2. Targets of bigotry, & anybody alive to injustice, can’t afford to care so much about the rationalizations people give for it. The effects are what matters. Isn’t there something a little unseemly about telling the victim of a mob assault that “my friends (or whatever you call the people you’re apologizing for) pummeled you for entirely different reasons than those other people”?
3. Ostensible ideological differences are highly overrated as explanations for bigotry. The reasons people give for their bigotry usually aren’t its entire causes. They’re often rationalizations – makeshift, confused, counterfactual & self-contradictory expedients – to make the irrational seem defensible. Beneath their various, shifting Rube Goldberg “theoretical” differences, the radical feminist transphobes & conservative Christian transphobes ultimately are animated by the same visceral enmity, vomited up from the same black hole in the human spirit. Everything else is the narcissism of small differences.
ditto Mandolin. It is because in both this thread and the original that I had not seen a single criticism of the cartoon that did NOT fall into pitfalls 1 and 2 that I became suspect that there was another criticism. THat doesn’t mean there isn’t one – and I am genuinely interested in hearing it. I may not wind up agreeing with you, but I do appreciate new perspectives and ideas as food for thought, just as I would hope you would appreciate my own perspectives as food for thought.
And
Okay, you guys are actually right on this. Mea way damn Culpa.
That shit is reprehensible, I had completely underestimated the level of bile, and people who either say it are either evil, crazy, or both.
Seriously. Wow.
—Myca
… that still doesn’t make radfems any more like fundies than the rest of us. Or the rest of you.
It does not make them in any way more similar to fundies, and it is not in any way a “more significant” similarity than any number of other attitudes that lefties and fundies may share. I’m sure that if we thought about it for a little bit, we could come up with a very long list of things that we all have in common with fundies that are pretty fucking “significant”.
Crys T,
It’s a morally & politically important fact that some radical feminists & some conservative Christians exhibit functionally equivalent transphobia. That’s a legitimate criticism of those radical feminists, even if other groups also exhibit the same defect. It’s not a criticism of Amp’s cartoon that some conservative adherents of non-Christian religions, or secular people, or whoever, make a similar point of transphobia. It’s still legitimate for people who participate in forums in which feminists, radical & otherwise, participate to criticize the vocal transphobia of a subset of radical feminists, & it’s not a legitimate defense against the criticism to point to other, ideologically disparate people who don’t participate in the fora but who’re also are transphobic. Nor is it unfair to note that the presence of transphobia within the feminist community, & the similarity of such bigotry to some conservative Christian attitudes, is peculiarly at odds with the presumed values & self-concept of feminist & progressive people. That’s why the cartoon has an edge, & makes some people defensive. If you grant that Amp hasn’t invented radical feminist transphobia out of whole cloth, but his cartoon still pisses you off, maybe you should take it as a sign that some part of the ideological community you identify with isn’t upholding the values you identify with it. They, not he, are responsible for your cognitive dissonance.
Some radical feminists most certainly do share transphobic bigotry with some conservative Christians more than many of “the rest of us,” and that makes them more like those conservative Christians than “the rest of us” in that significant respect. Nobody imagines that all radical feminists are distinctively transphobic, but it’s simply a fact that transphobia is more salient & more tolerated in some prominent radical feminist fora than in other feminist & progressive environments. That’s no doubt a problem that many radical feminists wouldn’t have wished on themselves, & a misfortune, but it exists, & the better response isn’t to join in ad hominem attacks against anybody – of whatever gender or weight – who dares to mention the problem, but to put your feminist shoulder to the wheel to make transphobia less salient & less tolerated in radical feminist discourse.
It’s a poor defense of bigotry to speculate that there might be some other equally significant similarity between “the rest of us” & conservative Christians. Maybe, maybe not. But tempting as it may be to invite us to examine our own real or imagined failings, in the absence of anything specific, it’s hard to say whether there’s any truth to your speculation. And whether there are or aren’t other similarities among other groups, they don’t make transphobia any prettier. Your argument is, among other defects, what’s called a tu quoque fallacy.
You seem grudgingly to acknowledge that there may be a current of transphobia among some radical feminists, & that it’s a bad thing, but seem more offended by the mention it, & the alleged imperfections of the person who’s objected. Wouldn’t be easier, slightly more dignified, even more feminist, just to fix the problem?
Mandolin, Myca, if you value two states of being equally, you don’t raise a fuss when one becomes t’other.
Myca, I don’t believe all radical feminists want to force the abortion of male children or make hetero sex illegal. Just as the Aryan Nation fantasizes about a White America, there is a feminist equivalent that ponders similar futures without men, and they are welcome within the ranks of radical feminism because they are vigorous allies, highly motivated to pursue power for women.
Neither of you can possibly be oblivious to man-hating rad fem ideology. I see some examples have been posted. [ ETA: Myca – I see you noticed the examples, okay maybe you were! Sorry. ] I can accept that it is not indicative of the rad fem majority, but I would like to hear that from the rad fem majority. And a little more often. Declarations like “You are not allowed to call yourself a radical feminist, peddle your hate somewhere else” would help, but Mandolin, you for example described a writer who you feel genuinely hates men, whose writing is toxic. You might consider her a bigot, maybe, possibly, but you definitely consider her a genuine radical feminist?
I’m suspicious of […] the ways in which you summarized certain radfeminist arguments which I imagine you’ve heard. […] Is the argument y ou were discussing the one that I quoted of Twisty’s?
No, nothing from Twisty’s, but she’s one source from which I concluded there was indeed some bigotry in Rad Feminism. Perhaps I suspect rad feminism is more anti-male than it really is because Rad Feminism that doesn’t include some kind of man-bashing often sounds like just Feminism to me. But anyway, I don’t see how you can reduce these statements to the level of irrelevency, no matter how blithely they said it. And hardly ‘blithely’. They’re channeling the Third Reich.
It may not be just, but I think it can be understandable, or even justifiable — at least, anger, which I think needs to be talked about separately from hatred. The central tenet of radical feminism that I happen to agree with is that women, as a class, are oppressed by patriarchal systems for the benefit of men, as a class. I think it’s always understandable — healthy, even — for an oppressed group of people to be pissed off at their oppression, not just at the abstract, reified notion of “patriarchy” that’s out there somewhere, but at the actual human beneficiaries of this system too.
I’m also of the school of thought that the healthy thing to do with your emotions is to express and share them, and that this is an OK thing to do as long as you aren’t actually hurting anyone. Yelling “I’m so mad I could punch someone in the face!” is a perfectly legitimate exprssion of anger, and also happens to fall within the protection of free speech. Actually punching a particular person in the face, threatening credibly to do so, or exhorting someone else to, is not. This crosses the line into action, which is where we have to make more responsible decisions about how to act on our feelings.
So basically, I think a certain amount of expression of anger expressed against men, white people, straight people, thin people, able-bodied people, rich people, people in power, what have you — it’s a good thing. And this can take many forms. People who are privileged in some way (and I certainly have some of those privileges I just listed) should understand where it’s coming from, try not to take things personally, and when necessary, find their own space to express how they feel about the subject. (Incidentally, this is also why I think entirely public discussion spaces, like the whole blogosphere, have their limitations.)
Of course, if someone is advocating “making hetero sex illegal” that starts to get into a grey area. But how close to “acting on anger” does this really get? Is this really a real campaign someone is marshalling political and economic capital for, getting signatures? Or is it just dark daydreams and black humor?
Hatred is a stronger word. I don’t think all anger directed at men is evidence of hatred of men, which implies something ingrained and deeply held. I think that can certainly happen too, and I don’t think most of us have to try very hard to imagine reasons why it might, especially if someone feels powerless and frustrated. It’s evidence of serious problems, and not just at the individual level. It’s worth paying attention to, although no, I don’t think I could ever call hatred, just by defintion, positive or just or healthy.
Damn it, lost my comment.
Christian, please accept my apologies for coming down so hard on you.
For some reason, I’m not running into many comments like the ones listed in this thread. Either I’m not reading those sites, or I am but I’m skipping those comments for some reason, or I’m reading those comments but filtering them out because they seem bizarre and irrelevant. Or some combination!
I generally agree with Holly about the difference between bigotry directed toward transpeople and the anger directed toward cissexual male people by radfeminists. That doesn’t make the bile in the comments that are in the thread okay, but I think they’re a different kind of problem than the third reich going after “undesirables.”
So, the definition of radfemnism under which I’m operating: women who believe that the original form of oppression is male versus female. Is this wrong? Are there others? It’s kind of fuzzy who is and isn’t radical, yes?
Christian, as I said back in 106, I totally agree and apologize. I underestimated how bad it was, and I was very wrong. Sorry about that. I think I wanted to believe people were not saying these things.
I was just over at antiprincess’ blog, where she was talking about someone (apparently seriously) arguing that mothers should refuse to care for their male children. That”s the kind of thing that gives you a whole new look at a mindset. I mean, holy crap.
Mandolin:
This is the definition I’ve been using too, and the really scary thing to me is that it’s not, in itself an unreasonable argument. I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but I think it’s worth looking at and talking about and thinking about . . . and now I have to wonder if it leads inevitably to this kind of craziness.
I mean, is this just an instance of the web magnifying awfulness? I don’t think that identifying as radfem must automatically make you advocate for the murder of children, but even the thought that there’s some sort of connection scares the shit out of me, seriously.
—Myca
Holly Writes:
“So basically, I think a certain amount of expression of anger expressed against men, white people, straight people, thin people, able-bodied people, rich people, people in power, what have you — it’s a good thing. And this can take many forms. People who are privileged in some way (and I certainly have some of those privileges I just listed) should understand where it’s coming from, try not to take things personally, and when necessary, find their own space to express how they feel about the subject. (Incidentally, this is also why I think entirely public discussion spaces, like the whole blogosphere, have their limitations.)
Of course, if someone is advocating “making hetero sex illegal” that starts to get into a grey area. But how close to “acting on anger” does this really get? Is this really a real campaign someone is marshalling political and economic capital for, getting signatures? Or is it just dark daydreams and black humor?”
This expression of anger might make for good therapy, but I really think it makes for lousy politics. On one hand, yeah, ideas like a hetero sex ban or a “man tax” aren’t ever going to amount to anything. (Though I do think radical feminists like MacKinnon have actually taken crappy ideas like this into actual legal theory and, more rarely, practice.) On the other hand, where “women expressing anger” encourages them to be taken in by existing moral panics and dovetails rather neatly into some existing reactionary political movements, namely the religious right-driven social conservativism, I think it can be very harmful. This is what I think much of radical feminist activism is doing when it goes into anti-trans, anti-sex work, anti-porn, and anti-BDSM territory.
And I think when political ideas are coming from a place of deep-seated hate, that to me constitutes an argument against that position, no matter how “theraputic” it might be to express those feelings.
“Hatred is a stronger word. I don’t think all anger directed at men is evidence of hatred of men, which implies something ingrained and deeply held.”
I see plenty on boards like I Blame the Patriarchy and Womensspace that I think constitutes real hatred – not just “dislike” of men. And if angry women need a place to vent, hey, I’m not going to get in their way. Just don’t expect me to get behind any politics that comes out of it, or to not point out where such politics are coming from.
So, the definition of radfemnism under which I’m operating: women who believe that the original form of oppression is male versus female.
Perhaps I’m off base, but that doesn’t seem all that radical. I wouldn’t use the word “oppression”, but I’d certainly argue and/or agree that the original form of conflict is male versus female.
Radical meaning root, not necessarily radical meaning extreme.
As in “Radical feminists believe that male versus female oppression and othering is the root of (and template for) all oppression and othering.”
Also, the Wikipedia says that:
—Myca
I wonder if any fundies would be offended by the cartoon because of the comparison to Radfem’s? Or would they embrace their transphobia and say “at least they got that much right?”
Radical feminists locate the root cause of women’s oppression in patriarchal gender relations
That seems circular. The root cause of the oppression is in the relationship between genders? (“Radical race activists locate the root cause of black’s oppression in racist race relations…”) I thought it was the relationship between the genders that was oppressive. How can the problem be the cause?
Thanks for the clarification re: radix. So easy to forget.
Or would they embrace their transphobia and say “at least they got that much right?”
They would say that the gender essentialist view was correct, and if a radfem said that gender essentialism was the source of her belief, they’d basically say “at least you got that much right”.
Okay, I think it’s useful for the conversational participants to suggest what definitions they’re working with, but I also think that a probing philosophical consideration of “what is radfeminism?” is probably a distraction.
The question of whether or not radfeminists as a group condone anti-male bigotry also seems like a sideline — except when it’s being used within the specific context of its relationship to transphobia.
We might want to refocus on the cartoon and the social dynamics it brings up.
i’d argue that anytime radfems as a group condone transphobia, it’s because they also condone anti-male bigotry, because those that condone those sorts of things, see trans women as males. or at the very least, “male born”, which is a round-about way of saying that trans women *are* male. from my experience, those rad fems who are anti-male are also anti-trans. they go hand in hand. i’ve never encountered a rad fem who was one without the other.
Amp, was this *intended* to become a radfem-bash thread, or was that just the way it shook out?
Good points, Nexyjo.
I think the reasoning goes something like, “maleness is so incredibly threatening and hurtful to women through its mere existence, whether it’s biological maleness or male privilege we’re discussing, that we must treat anything even close to or related to maleness as if it were the same thing.”
Thus people who used to be male, people who are becoming male, and people who are male (but infants) are all equally a threat. Because that’s how bad it is.
I don’t have any sympathy for the bigotry, of course, but I guess I find the whole thing just sad in a way. How awfully wounded are these people to get to that point? What kind of awful shit has the patriarchy done to them? I mean, it really reaffirms my commitment to be as careful as I can be with the world around me.
—Myca
Hey Daisy . . . I would be interested in discussion of this stuff without bashing.
Much of what I’ve seen and read lately has me kind of very worried when it comes to what’s considered publicly acceptable in radfem circles, and if what I’m seeing is cherry-picked or extremely rare or generally confronted and shouted down by other radfems, I’d like to know it. It’s entirely possible that I have the wrong impression.
On the other hand, if the stuff I’m seeing generally isn’t uncommon or isn’t confronted by other radfems, then discussing that seems fair.
Also, back in post 45/46, Amp kind of tried to engage with you directly, and give you an opportunity to explain some of what was bothering you about the cartoon. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you wanted to respond to his post now.
—Myca
I don’t understand why my two extremely esteemed co-moderators are being so soft on Christian.
Christian wrote:
Let’s not forget that not a single example of a feminist person or organization “advocating such policies as making het sex illegal, the removal of men from political office or forbidding the birth of male children” has been posted.
What has been posted is a couple of hateful comments that stopped well short of any of the extremist proposals Christian described. I followed the first link, to Pony’s “all men are rapists” comment, and saw that later in the thread there were comments like this (from Heart):
And this comment, by Gaia’s muse:
So what it seems to me we’re dong here is cherry-picking the most extreme comments from Heart’s threads, not talking about the representative views there.
You could make a reasonable argument, I think, that the cherry-picked comments might not represent the norm, but they do show that a great deal of misandry is tolerated and even welcomed on Heart’s blog. (It’s not like Pony is an unwelcome member of the community there). But even so, the cherry-picked comments fall far, far short of the accusations Christian leveled but failed to support with any facts.
I think Mandolin’s early response to Christian was on the mark:
And also Myca’s initial comment:
Again, right on the mark, and I’m frankly bewildered that you apologized for this statement, Myca. Your first instinct was right.
As far as I can tell, Christian is a nasty anti-feminist troll and a liar. If he doesn’t actually answer Myca’s question, by providing “examples of some sort of reputable (or even really extreme) radfem organization seriously advancing these ideas” — and no, Valerie Solonas doesn’t count! — then I think he should be banned from “Alas.”
Edited to add: Actually, I’m going to ban Christian regardless, unless he apologizes profusely for the third reich comment (and maybe even then). But before banning him, I want to see if he can actually come up with any evidence to substantiate his fantastic accusations. My bet is he can’t.
IAmCuriousBlue, I’ve enjoyed your participation in this thread, and I’ve agreed with some of the things you’ve said. So I don’t mean to disrespect you when I disagree with this:
Actually, I don’t think that’s true at all. MacKinnon’s biggest success at policy making is the laws against sexual harassment in the workplace; even if you disagree with sexual harassment laws, they simply cannot fairly be described as being “ideas like” a ban on heterosexual sex or a tax on being male.
MacKinnon most famous and reviled attempt at lawmaking is the MacKinnon/Dworkin anti-porn ordinance, which would have made it possible for people who believed that they were victimized by porn to bring civil suits against makers and distributors of porn. I think the law was a bad idea, both on its own merits and as a political strategy; but it’s still a thousand miles away from ideas like banning all heterosexual sex.
I think my claim — which is that radical feminists have too often been way to accepting of anti-trans bigotry in their midst — is quite supportable. But I don’t think all of the other claims made about radfems in this thread are equally supportable.
(Yes, I know I’m digressing my own thread. But heck, it’s past the 100th post, and to tell the truth I agree with Daisy: some of the comments on this thread, most especially Christian’s, are nothing but radfem-bashing.)
I very much agree with Holly’s response to IAmCuriousBlue, in comment #110.
KH, #105 and #108, thank you for your eloquent defense of my cartoon. I mean, I need to thank a whole bunch of people for that :-D , but I think your comments in particular were well-reasoned and frankly did a better job than I have done putting into prose what I “intended” with the cartoon, and why most of the critics have entirely missed the point.
Crys T wrote:
Crys, it was a negative characterization of my motivations. In your original context, there is no other reasonable reading of “Amp slammed radfems on this issue because radfems are currently a very easy target…. earn the cartoonist a lot of nice back-slapping” except that you were talking about my motivations.
There’s no “if” about it.
That said, apology accepted.
For what it’s worth, you’re dead wrong. I didn’t post the cartoon thinking “gosh, I’ll get a lot of praise for this one”; I posted it fully expecting to be torn apart, and to be attacked not just for the ideas expressed in the cartoon but for the “amptoons sell-out” (which is NOT a topic I’m eager to bring up again!) and for whatever other personal attacks people could make (which turned out to be attacks on me for being fat). Also, publishing the cartoon caused two real-life friends of mine to be significantly peeved with me, which is not an outcome that I want at all, but was an outcome I suspected would happen.
As for why I wrote the cartoon, it was because I was furious after reading a thread at Heart’s place. Not because I was seeking praise; not because I’m bitter over “Ampgate”; I was just pissed off. Just as I’ve been pissed off when I’ve written dozens or hundreds of previous cartoons about other subjects. Why is that so hard to believe?
I’ve noticed that when amp posts a cartoon about ANYTHING he’s sure to be told that it’s wrong, incomplete or needs to be done better.
Would these two be strange bedfellows? No stranger than the alliance premised between radical christians and transpeople in “Gendercator”
I’m sorry to look like a hit and run, I’m just starting to find my voice in the feminist blogosphere (e.g. I have a blank blog under the name of justmekaren “What was I thinking?”) so it may seem hit and run, but I don’t mean to be so.
This whole idea of hypersimplification really reflects on more than just a cartoon. If we look at ourselves, are some not hypersimplifying transpeople, and transwoman a la carte, in the blogs of others?
Won’t that beg a hypersimpliflied answer? Or even, only entertain one?
I’m saddened that more nuanced voices don’t get the attention that a few commentators get. People with nuanced voices help nuanced listeners, they are themselves nuanced people. They care. They break down walls.
I read the cartoon as asking “Maybe we should talk, and not just ascribe motives (walls)?” through a negative inference. The people being talked about aren’t there, though.
They are in the response section of this blog, however.
Just another reminder. Whichever side wins, my spouse and I are in trouble. Gee, reminds me why I stick up for transfolk.
Myca, Amp admirably acquitted himself in this thread. :)
Thanks, since I also consider Christian a troll.
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[Paranoid rantings, completely devoid of any actual evidence to support Christian’s deluded accusations, disemvoweled by Amp. Christian, you are now banned from “Alas”; please don’t attempt to post comments here anymore. –Amp]
spps hv n chc bt t nswr y, mp. ntl rd yr ltmtm ws gng t drp t. thght thr ws lss dsgrmnt tht rdcl fmnsm hd sm sss wth mn. Y cld mk rsnbl rgmnt, thnk, tht […] th d shw tht grt dl f msndr s tlrtd nd vn wlcmd n Hrts blg […] Bt vn s, th chrr-pckd cmmnts fll fr, fr shrt f th ccstns Chrstn lvld bt fld t spprt wth n fcts. Y dmt msndr s tlrtd wthn rdcl fmnsm. Y dmt trnsphb s tlrtd wthn rdcl fmnsm. wld xpct th frqnc f n t crrlt strngl wth th frqnc f th thr. Tht s th ssntl pnt wshd t mk. Th thr nswrs n ths thrd fr th qstn ‘Wh d th tlrt trnsphb?’ hv bn ‘Bcs th’r mr gndr ssntlst… fr n xplnbl rsn’ nd ‘Wht trnsphb?’. f h dsnt ctll nswr Mycs qstn, b prvdng xmpls f sm srt f rptbl (r vn rll xtrm) rdfm rgnztn srsl dvncng ths ds nd n, Vlr Slns dsnt cnt! thn thnk h shld b bnnd frm ls. cpl f thrs wr qckr n th drw t nwrng Myc wth xmpls f th wrtngs. Myc rd thm nd th md th pnt s ddn’t bthr rptng thm. dn’t knw f n rptbl rgnztns tht r prsntl tryng t psh nt-ht sx lws thrgh th crt systm, bt th wld hv t b nsn t tr wtht vr lrg pltcl spprt bs. Crt lng bfr th hrs. n bsns f pltcl rtrdtn ds nt mn th r bv rprch, nd t dsn’t mn th r glt f crs, bt smn s sprdng sch ds t grss rts lvl. Sm f thm r cknwldgd b sm f th ls lt t b rdcl fmnsts. Nw, th Fmnst nttv prt f Swdn ws rptbl nd frst ttmpts t nt-ml lws hd bn lnkd wth thm. Th prt hd bn dvncng pltcll b lmtng tslf t strtg f prmtng pltfrm f scl gltrnsm fr ll nn-htrnrmtv flk, pplr mvmnt n Swdn. Thr chncs f frmng prt wthn th gvrnmnt dspprd whn thr ntrnl nt-ml, nt-htr nd nt-trns bgtr nd bllyng ws xpsd. S t sms rdcl fmnsm s s cpbl f prjdc s n thr grp, nd s s cpbl f dnyng t s n thr grp. ctll, m gng t bn Chrstn rgrdlss, nlss h plgzs prfsl fr th thrd rch cmmntT nyn wh fls hv ffndd thm b lnkng ht prpgnd wth th Thrd Rch, plgz. ws nswrng qstn: hw dd th spkrs f th d cnv thm? Srsl? Srcstcll? Drml? sd th Thrd Rch s shrthnd t s ‘th cnvyd th wrst knd f flth wth th vgr f tr blvr.’ Gd lck thn, whtvr y dcd mp.
MacKinnon’s biggest success at policy making is the laws against sexual harassment in the workplace
To be more detailed there, Mackinnon helped pioneer the idea of the “hostile workplace”. Up until then, sexual harassment was only considered harassment if it was quid pro quo–“sleep with me and I’ll promote you,” that kind of thing. But it didn’t address sexual harassment where there were no explicit conditions other than having to tolerate the harassment. For example, a lone woman at a workplace whose male co-workers constantly hit on her, left pornographic photos with her photo pasted over the model’s face taped to her desk, discussed their sex lives in graphic, loud detail every time she walked by, etc. – would not, traditionally, have been “harassed” because nobody threatened to fire her or made promotion contingent on sleeping with her boss.
Mackinnon helped legal theory change to understand that this kind of work environment, like quid pro quo harassment, is sex discrimination.
Out of curiosity, did you sometimes take out the y?
Myca – “I don’t have any sympathy for the bigotry, of course, but I guess I find the whole thing just sad in a way. How awfully wounded are these people to get to that point? What kind of awful shit has the patriarchy done to them? I mean, it really reaffirms my commitment to be as careful as I can be with the world around me.”
This, honestly, is where I am too. As disgusted as I am with the bigotry, there’s a part of me that’s going “something really bad must have happened to this person to make them feel that way”, and I just can’t ignore that. It’s how I feel about Dworkin, actually – I disagree with her on almost everything BUT looking at her life experience, I can understand why she came to the conclusions she did. At one point I genuinely hated her, then I read about her life story and ended up wanting to give her a cuddle.
Which is why this whole thing is so damn confusing. I can understand WHY some radfems hate men, I just can’t agree with them, and it always seems to end up with a situation where you’re talking past each other
And this is why I part company with identity politics in general. So hatred of men is somehow a positive thing because men have relative social power over women? I can see where its less dangerous, considering men have more social power to fall back on to defend themselves against such attacks than do transexuals. It might even be understandable, especially if somebody has a history of abuse at the hands of men. But I don’t have much patience for the idea that hatred of men is actually something positive and just.
What Holly said, although I think it’s not that clear and bright a line between “anger” and “hatred.” maybe that’s not really the point, though. I mean: you feel the way you feel, right; and in some ways, even shit I’d describe as outright bigotry, I think there’s an argument to be made that I’d rather just deal with it right up front than have to work through a bunch of pseudo-polite veiling only to find that under all the code it amounted to the same damn thing all along, weeks or months or years later.
Maybe this: the confusion between what’s hateful and hurtful, and what is or isn’t an accurate description of systemic injustice.
So, I mean: I don’t actually think the “Nigel Jr.” crap is any less hateful than the transphobic crap, especially when you consider that the speaker was addressing a mother and at the same time telling her to not take it personally; and yeah, that shit matters all by itself, it’s corrosive and horrible, and sometimes, you bet, “it’s the thought that counts.”
On the other hand, if someone were to point at that and say, well that clinches it, men are being discriminated against, feminists are telling women to leave their boy babies out on a hill to die and lo! it is so! this is an imminent societal danger! well…not so much. Does that mean it could -never- happen in any possible world, or that the speaker is any less loathsome than someone talking that way about some other population? No. But it does mean that people who grab onto that sort of shit as some sort of justification for how men ARE the Most Oppressed Of All really need to put down the crack pipe. Too.
Or, put it another way: putting the demonizing shit aside, the basic statement
“Men oppress women,”
while you can argue it’s an oversimplication and so on and so forth, I still find it less problematic than, as some of these people are also saying,
“Transpeople oppress women.”
Well, this thread is probably dead, but I want to respond to several points that were made.
1) Women hating men – obviously, my argument is very unpopular here, considering that this blog seems to be a bastion of a “hardline” approach identity politics. So be it. But its terribly clear to me – however much women hating on men may be valid as therapy (and one can certainly make a good case for this), it makes for piss-poor politics. It is simply not valid to concoct rules and proscriptions other people have to live by based on your hatred of them. (Hell, its pretty questionable to do that for somebody’s supposed benefit – doing it out of hatred is just that much worse.)
“Men have privilege over women” is a true statement (in a gross generalization kind of way). “Therefore, women should be able to do anything they like to men” or “therefore, the human rights and civil liberties of men is a non-issue” does not automatically flow from that true statement.
I’ll also point out once again that radical feminist who are the most “man-hating” are also the ones that are most hateful toward trannies and kinky people. I don’t think hatred can be kept in a tidy little box, where one can neatly separate out hatred of socially privileged groups (like men) from relatively marginalized groups (like transsexuals and other sexual minorities). If anything, hatred of the privileged simply manifests as a “kick the dog” syndrome where aggression and hostility is vented out on nearer and more vulnerable targets.
2) Catherine MacKinnon – I recognize her contribution to sexual harrassment law, and I’m not against sexual harrassment law per se. I am definitely against the highly problematic overly-broad application, especially in the area of “hostile environment” law. (For a very good discussion of why “hostile environment” law is corrosive toward civil liberties, I refer you to Eugene Volokh’s writing on the topic – shorter version here, longer version here.) I think this over-breadth comes straight from the fact that MacKinnon played such an important role in pioneering this area of law. And I think the over-breadth is intentional and that, if anything, MacKinnon’s intent is to make this branch of law far more far-reaching. I refer you to this podcast interview with MacKinnon where she makes some statements about how far-reaching these kinds of laws should be.
3) It was not actually my intention to make this discussion all about man-hating or sexual harrassment law or MacKinnon. My point is that similarities between the religious right and radical feminist lines on transsexuality simply cannot be viewed in isolation. There are multiple points of convergence on issues as diverse as transexualism, sadomasochism, pornography, monogamy and sexual “promiscuity”, and even, back in the day, on the Satanic ritual abuse panic. One would have to simply be blind not to see that all of this convergence adds up to a pattern.
I am definitely against the highly problematic overly-broad application, especially in the area of “hostile environment” law. (For a very good discussion of why “hostile environment” law is corrosive toward civil liberties, I refer you to Eugene Volokh’s writing on the topic – shorter version here, longer version here.)
While I really disagree that it’s “overbroad”, the issue with hostile-environment harassment is that there is no bright line. There can’t be.