A while back, after I’d participated in some fairly intense threads here at Alas defending woman-only space in general, and woman-only internet boards (mine, in particular), Amp asked me if I’d like to start blogging regularly on Alas. I’ve been thinking about his invitation for some time now, and a couple of times I’ve written something, even threatened Amp that I was about to begin. Each time, though, I’ve ultimately decided not to, for the same reasons I haven’t posted at Alas for a long, long, time. There are just so many anti-feminist posters here. There are way too many men here, and too many of them seem to be here for the express purpose of making feminist discussion unlikely to impossible. It seemed too likely to me that attempting serious feminist discussion here would be like trying to have a conversation in a bar while the band was playing, just too frustrating.
A couple of days ago, Ginmar posted to my boards, alerting me to the treatment she was receiving here and to the fact that she had finally left Alas. I read her
I first encountered Amp on the old Ms boards, where there were the same ongoing problems with trolls, men’s rights activists, anti-feminists, libertarians, conservatives. Eventually, frustrated with how difficult it was to simply engage feminist women over issues of importance to us, I began what became a series of over 50 woman-only threads expressly for radical feminist women. Lots of people on the Ms boards, including feminist women, objected to those threads at first, but over time, their value became apparent even to those who at first opposed them. In the woman-only, radical feminist women’s space threads, women were at last able to enjoy serious discussions of feminist issues with far fewer of the intrusions and obfuscations typical of those who were on the Ms boards with one purpose and goal in mind: to silence and erase the voices of feminists, and especially feminist radicals, militants and separatists.
I think it’s great that Amp has revised the moderation policies here to make separate threads for men’s rights people and anti-feminists. I think that is definitely a step in the right direction. I would like to propose the creation of woman-only, radical feminist threads here as well, of the type some of us enjoyed back in the old Ms boards days, of the type we enjoy every day on my own boards. It seems to me that if space can be made for anti-feminists and fathers’ rights trolls here, it might make sense to make similar space for those of us who are radical feminists, separatists, and militants. I think it’s a shame that our presence on these boards is all but gone. Feminist women who share our politics and beliefs and history created a revolution in our time on behalf of the people of women, first and foremost, but ultimately benefitting all people — men, women, and children, and creatures and the earth as well. It seems to me that space should be made here for the kinds of discussions and discourses which have changed and are changing the world.
Woman-only, radical feminist space here won’t prevent anyone from discussing the issues we raise (in other threads which they create). What it will ensure is that our voices are not silenced and erased completely. And it might work to minimize the provocations which inexorably lead to flame wars and targeting and the uncivil posting styles which are often criticized here. So whaddya say, Amp? I’m pretty sure this isn’t what you anticipated I might post as a first post to your blog! It’s just that I haven’t been up for dealing with men’s rights guys and anti-feminists and trolls. I’ve done that to death and can’t give it my energy anymore. But I’d sure be up for creating a new space here for those who share my own separatist, radical, and militant feminist politics. I’d enjoy engaging the issues raised in the radical feminist threads outside of those threads here as well. And for what it’s worth, I’m betting the discussion which ensues now will be interesting.
Heart (Cheryl)
http://www.womensspace.org ( The Margins)
Well it’s certainly a curious problem, with regards to Ginmar and the original post. It’s hard to not address the Ginmar situation considering it’s what brought on the initial post, that has been a hotbed of discussion about what to me seems like the difference between acting like a radical feminist and acting like a complete jerkwad. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m seeing more and more the tendency of some radical feminists (not so much from our current radical fem’s here, but more on some of the different radical feminist blogs) to feel they have the right to give or take away someones ‘feminist’ credentials. I in fact lost mine this past week! Go figure. For me, it was meaningless because I know what I am, where I am and how far I’ve personally come, but it’s worth not outright ignoring, because it poses a very serious problem within the feminist community itself. How is it any different for radical feminists to attempt pushing around less radical feminists, than men doing the same? It all ends up amounting to ‘sit down and shut up little lady, we know what’s good/better/best for you’.
Maybe it doesn’t need to be centered around the Ginmar controversy, but she certainly provides an example of making the line hazy when it comes to aggressive activism and abusive activism.
Ergh – hit enter before I meant to.
Anyways, to finish off, the post that Jer linked to initially where the discussion was a definitive rant and roast that was baseless about Alas, and the community that participates on Alas. When called on it, the response collectively seemed to me to be one of ‘you put your opinions and actions out on the web to be criticized by participating’ which seems to imply that anyone that extends themselves out there and addresses whatever it is others want to discuss or debate is fair game. Needless to say, the discussions I’ve witnessed this week have been enlightening and worthy of being discussed themselves in my mind, because they seem to highlight the struggles within feminism of what almost seems to be ‘ownership’ or ‘more-feminist-than-thou’ attitudes that are hardly a positive force.
Amp: If I understand your argument correctly (and maybe I don’t), you seem to be saying that this sort of comparison shows men to be better off “across the board,” and therefore we should understand “sexism as the first or root or foundational or core oppression, with all other oppressions … racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, modeled after this one.”
Here’s where I’m confused: Couldn’t you say the same thing about virtually any other kind of widepread oppression? For instance, I’d argue that the correct way to evaluate white supremacy is to compare whites and blacks who are similarly situated in all ways other than race. Doing this will show whites to be better off than blacks “across the board.” Does it therefore follow that racism is the root oppression, and all other oppressions are modeled on it?
Amp is tricksy hobbits, luring me back into this thread. Heh. Well, I have a few things to say, here and in the Transwomen thread, so it’s all good.
First, I think if we compare black people and white people who are similarly situated, we do not find that across the board, white people are worse off than black people. I think we find, for example, that black men, in general, earn more money than white women and have consistently for a very long time. I think we find that black men were, for example, enfranchised as citizens in the United States 70 years before white women were. And I think we find, for example, that black college-educated women earn more money today, than similarly situated college-educated white women. I have written about this in some depth here.
I think we can say that male supremacy is the first, or root oppression, because men, throughout history and in every culture, first oppressed women, before any man, or any tribe or culture, ever oppressed anyone on account of race, class or whom someone loved. Racism, classism, homophobia, are recent inventions compared with the subjugation of women to men because we are women. The first oppression — oppression of women because we are women — occurred wherever women were assigned the tasks of sexual servicing men, reproduction for the benefit of the tribe or people group, and wherever women were assigned the tasks of the care of infants and children for the benefit of the tribe or people group. This goes back to the very earliest civilizations in all and every part of the world, without respect to race, ethnicity, religion, people group. Students of black history — which I am — know, for example, that in the 10th, 11th centuries, kings in African people groups exchanged women, wives, concubines, with kings in white European people groups. And the African kings were as racist in the direction of European royalty as was true, vice versa. A good book to begin with for those who are unfamiliar with this history is Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett.
Male supremacy was the very first “othering,” the very first objectification by one class of people, men, of another class of people, women. Men’s otherng of women occurred, again, across the boundaries of race, culture, class and history. The othering was enlisted in the service of specific goals, i.e., the sexual servicing of men, the bearing of children, creation and perpetuation of family dynasties, and all of the caretaking and labor involved in these efforts. In the othering of women, men learned the usefulness and efficacy of dominance hierarchies. Power-over was eroticized and celebrated. Over time other people groups were othered, in later periods of history and in various cultures, for specific reasons, most of them having to do with the amassing of wealth or the preservatin of dominance hierarchies. But the techniques by way of which a class of people — women — were made the servants of an upper class — men, were honed in the earliest relationships between men and women. And for this reason, among others, radical feminists attend to the *way* women as a people group continue to be objectified and othered by men as a people group. Other otherings are important and the subject of the attention of all feminists, including radical feminists, but radical feminists attend first and foremost to this one, which is so central in so many ways.
Heart
Basement Kim:
Heh. Oh, believe me. There’s nothing new there. I’m guessing that mine were officially revoked some time between the 2000 election and my being kicked off the Ms. Boards. Certainly those of us who got the short end of that particular stick are well-aquainted with the way that a certain subgroup of radical feminists can influence a supposedly moderate institution to use one very specific criteria of what “feminist cred” is– and then revoke status accordingly.
But, you know, life goes on. I will never give those clowns another dime of my money. And in the unlikely event that I someday manage to sell even more cheaply-produced, useless ephemera with my name on it than either Martha Stewart or Thomas Kinkeade, I will take great joy in telling them to kiss my ass when they call me up to request an interview. :p
NOTE: SINCE THIS THREAD IS NOW NEARLY 300 POSTS LONG, I’ve moved the exchange between Heart and I to a fresh new thread.
You’ll always be a feminist to me, alsis.
Heh. For whatever that’s worth.
Bean, I hope this wasn’t addressed to something I said, because if it was, I’ve completely failed to express myself properly. I would never say that a transgendered person would have a better insight into being a woman, but rather that he/she would have a different perspective.
Agreed.
Ampersand:
I’ll tone my criticisms down a bit. It occured to me that you are neither omnipotent or omniscient, and it seems that you are doing your best to keep the discussion civil and relevant. (I am referring to the problem of post 263, that it had already received answers).
Seeing stuff disappear suddenly just prompted some response.
piny and nella:
Likewise, I’m sure. 8)
I think this thread shows a clear problem in how some people choose to engadge in any discussion where some or one of the concepts touching on “radical feminism” arise. It’s a pretty “dog pile” situation sometimes.
What was being discussed is the moderation policy here on Alas. Yet, without fail one can predict that the standard rants about trans inclusion will show up, that endless references to discussions on other forums and old grudges will be dragged out and that someone, somewhwre, will be called a “non feminist”.
It’s all sort of predictable more than a little unfortunate.
The whole “rape defense” thing is among the most interesting litmus tests applied to see if someone is feminist. It is as if to suggest that someone might want to deal with the real world as it exists at the moment is to betray them. I am completely unsure how. Teaching someone ways to mitigate a risk (self defense), giving them to tools to fight back (arming them) and advising caution are NOT betrayals… they are logical and practical strategies WHILE work continues to make it unecessary.
As I interpreted it, the question of rape defense was not a question regarding whether it would be a good thing if women could make themselves safer from rape, but, first of all, whether this was even possible; second of all, if it was, is it fair to imply that rape prevention is the responsibility of women (who can put tremendous time and energy into it and still be vulnerable) or men (who can just not rape); third of all, is it, in the long run, a productive or useful strategy, or a dead end (not to mention the whole issue of frequency of stranger rape vs. acquaintance rape).
To put it another way: do you encourage people to use contained air supplies or do you try to do something about the damn air pollution?
Clothing and rape.
So does it make any difference to a woman’s chance of being raped or doesn’t it? Does anyone know? Is there any evidence one way or another?
Because it seems to me that the question of whether women should or should not dress ‘provocatively’, or whether it’s blaming the victim, or putting responsibility upon her becomes all rather irrelevent if, as I suspect, clothing makes no difference whatsoever to the risk.
If radical feminist s state a need and desire for a space of their own I think that alone is enough to give it to them.No one here has the right or capacity to argue with someone else’s needs and certainly shouldn’t have the power to judge whether or not they should have it.
Give it to them is all I have to say.
Amp does not have to give anyone anything. If radfems want their own space, they should go create their own space. They, nor MRAs nor anyone else has a right to force Amp to change his blog in any way. You have a right to not post here. You have a right to complain, but you do not have a right to force change on someone else.
Good grief, if radfems think the world is so great with only women, that men are not necessary, then why on earth are they on a man’s blog trying to get him to do all their work for them.
Pretty ironic, don’t ya think?
I will give it a try.
A woman is middle class, but needs the husband’s income to maintain her lifestyle. Her husband is abusing her and she fears for the kids. She goes to a battered women’s shelter, where they provide free childcare, a lawyer, legal advice, and a place to stay with the children with security in case the husband tries to track her down. They help her find an apartment, file a restraining order, and get sole custody of the children and child support.
Sounds right? This is fair, battered women should be protected, and children should not have to live in fear of a parent.
A man middle class, but depends on his wife’s income to maintain the lifestyle. His wife is physically abusing him, and he fears for his children. He calls a DV shelter and is told they do not help men. He calls the police and he is arrested. Finally, a DV shelter suggests he go to a hotel. The only one he can afford is very seedy, very small and not a good place for children. He has no where to take his kids while he is at work. He has no money for legal advice, the judge will not grant a restraining order, the hotel has no security. Based on where he is living, likely he will not get custody of the children.
Now tell me, how is this fair? How is it that the kids can be so utterly without protection simply because the parent fleeing is a man? How is it that male abused, who make up about a third of all DV victims, have no services?
Here are two cases similar but entirely different outcomes.
Um, Biscuit Queen, radical feminists/lesbian separatists do have our own spaces and one of them is here, Women’s Space/The Margins , and our boards are here Women’s Space/Margins Boards.
Now. Imagine if a bunch of us showed up en masse at your hangout, Stand Your Ground, and just spammed every last nook and cranny of the place with anti-men’s rights, anti-father’s rights posts and radical feminist sentiment. Just filled every last thread with them. (Sounds like a plan to me.) And beyond spamming every last thread with the above, say every time somebody at SYG began some MR or FR discussion, we all showed up to disrupt the thread, divert it, get all of you explaining and re-explaining precisely what mens’ rights is about and what fathers’ rights are about, stirred up shit amongst you, turned you against one another. And what if this went on and on forever, to the point that you and all your buds over there could barely get a word in edgewise, such that you got irate and belligerent a few times. And then what if Dr. Evil’s (the mod over there’s) response to your belligerence was not to deal with the radical feminists but was to *ban YOU*. The men’s rights/father’s rights guys who were mad at radical feminists for spamming every thread.
How would that grab you?
That’s we believe has happened here. So far, that I know of, three good radical feminists have been banned and many more hounded out of here or otherwise silenced, good women who have so much to contribute. Yet the MRAs and the FRAs and anti-feminists in general, and anti-radical-feminists in particular, just continue on, spamming the place day after wearying day. Amp intended these boards to be feminist and pro-feminist, yet from what I can see they are mostly a haven for anti-feminists, men’s rights trolls and people with axes of various kinds to grind against feminism. That’s Amp’s issue and his deal and he can run his blog any way he chooses. But if he keeps banning radical feminists from his feminist blog, we’re going to have something to say about that. Loudly. Just as if Dr. Evil kept banning MRAs and FRAs from SYG while we radical feminists turned it into our own personal playground, yet continued to call it a Men’s/Father’s Rights site, you, and other MRAs and FRAs would likewise have something to say about that. Loudly.
As to your scenario up there, let’s try something a little different.
Let’s say a woman is middle class but depends on her husband’s income. He forbids her to work — a working wife would embarrass him in front of his friends and family and anyway, daycare centers don’t exist to care for their kids — and she isn’t eligible for many kinds of employment anyway because she is a woman. Her husband physically abuses her and she fears for her life and for her children. She can’t write a check or take money from her husband’s checking account because it is in his name only and he will not add her name. She has no access to any money other than the allowance her husband gives her. Her name is not on the deed to the house, or the bank accounts or the car registration. All of these are in her husband’s name only and she can’t lay claim to them or use them without his permission. She can’t go to her church for help because her church will (1) not believe her; (2) tell her she is probably a bad wife and mother and if she were a better wife and mother, her husband wouldn’t have to abuse her and the kids; (3) opposes divorce; (4) will tell her husband she has come to them for help and is thinking of leaving.
She has no access to money for anything at all — motel, hotel, apartment, food, shelter of any kind. There are no domestic violence shelters. It is not a crime for a husband to batter or rape his wife or to strike his children, so she can’t call the police. They will say it’s a “domestic matter.” If she somehow gets an attorney and files for divorce, since no-fault dissolution does not exist, she will have to “prove” that she is “entitled” to a divorce. Having been beaten or raped or the kids being beaten or raped won’t entitle her to a divorce; these are either not illegal or it will be her word against his and he will deny everything and there will be no police reports because what he did to her was not a crime and she never called police. She has never worked, because she wasn’t allowed to by her husband, she has no job skills and no job history. There are no daycare centers. She has many children because there is no effective birth control, abortion is illegal, and her husband does not take no for an answer when it comes to sex. She is effectively his property.
What I have described is life as it existed in the United States 40 years ago. At that time, women came together, compared notes, came to understand that they were all experiencing the same things, and together they made a revolution. They took battered women and their children into their own homes, and these became the first DV shelters. They marched in the streets and lobbied legislators and brought lawsuits and gave their lives, basically, to ending the era of women as chattel property to men. They used their own money, their own bodies, their own time, their own brilliance, their own courage. They were arrested, harrassed, threatened, badgered, and relentlessly excoriated.
But the world we have now, 40 years later, is a new and different world. And why? Because women made revolution.
I would suggest to you that women have no obligation to serve men. I would suggest to you that we do not have any obligation to make our shelters or our crisis counseling lines or anything else we created with our own sweat, blood and tears available to men. If some woman wants to do so, fine with me. But we are under no obligation to do any such thing.
I would suggest to you that the daycares centers we created for children are available, right now, for to men to use, daycare centers don’t discriminate on any sort of basis, so your hypothetical battered man has a place to take his children where one did not exist 40 years ago. And why? Because of feminism. I will tell you straight up that in most states, mine, for sure, *anybody* can get an anti-harrassment order that is good for 30 days, just on a say-so, that’s man or woman. Additionally, initial divorce filings nearly always contain restraining orders of both parties as against the other as a matter of course. And why? Because of feminism. So let the guy take his rear end down to the court house and get a restraining order or file for divorce. Anybody can, no attorney needed, in the case of restraining orders at least. I will tell you straight up that if your theoretical battered guy wants custody of his children, and if he actively seeks it, he is far more likely to GET custody than his wife is. And why? Because of feminism. And the figures for this are easy to find for anybody who goes looking for this. Check out the Countess’s site, for starters.
As to “depending on the wife’s income to maintain the lifestyle,” well, that’s a far cry from being forced into dependency as women once were. The guy has a job. He has money. He has access to money. He can take care of himself. This was NOT true for women, because of systemic and institutionalized sexism, prior to the Second Wave.
That leaves only one issue: the issue of DV shelters which aren’t open to men. You know what? You tell these hypothetical legions of battered men to do what we did: start taking one another into their own homes. Start raising money. Rent space when they outgrow homes. Care for one another’s kids. Find sympathetic attorneys, doctors, politicians. There’s nothing stopping them. What are they waiting for? I’d submit to you, too, that no battered woman I know wants to go to a shelter staffed by, or full of, men. And there are reasons for that. And for those reasons, I suggest you read the nightly news. And I’d also suggest to you that there are reasons men would not have a problem going to shelters staffed by, or full of, women. And for the reasons for that, I’d suggest you also read the nightly news. In general, men are a danger to women, not the other way around. And even if A woman is a danger to A man, the danger ends there. It doesn’t work the other way around. Women just aren’t out there raping and murdering men by the score, up to 50 or more over a lifetime for shits and giggles. That’s what men do. Not women. And that’s why women don’t like to see random men in shelters. Well, that’s one reason. And if you need a list of men who have murdered 10 through 60 women over their lifetimes with the names of victims, I can provide that information. But you will never find any comparable information about women killing 20-60 men throughout their lives. Because it doesn’t happen.
So. In sum. We feminists have done a whole lot of work over the last 40 years to make life much better for your theoretical battered guy than it would have been without all the work we have done. He has inherited a much better world for someone in his position than existed prior to feminism. And it’s radical feminsists and lesbian separatists and feminists, period, you and he have to think for all the many resources which exist for him which never existed before. One thing we haven’t done is make DV shelters for men. Please do not hold your breath on that. Men ought to be able to do that one thing for themselves.
I think Amp understands that. He has, however, explained that he is open to suggestions as on how to improve his blog and radfems (and other folks, like me [feminist-friendly on some issues]) are offering suggestions. Where is the irony?
What happened to the claim (that MRA:s invoke against wage gap etc.) that equality should not mean equal outcomes, but equal opportunities (this is my position, BTW)?
Are men’s opportunities to set up men’s shelters restricted by the existence of women’s shelters?
I, for one, support legal, tax-payer paid funding to reflect the ratio (and severity/need of help) of men/woman DV victims. Many posters here (to my knowledge) do that. Volunteer work is a different issue, though.
I’m not here telling that volunteers must help people that I want them to help. Volunteers are volunteers, they do what they will (within the limits of human rights). Someone volunteers to help DV victims, but only women? Good for him/her (and my sincere respect for using free-time for such a noble cause)! Someone volunteers to help DV victims, but only men? Good for him/her (and my sincere respect for using free-time for such a noble cause)! Someone volunteers to help all victims of DV? Good for him/her (and my sincere respect for using free-time for such a noble cause)!
Someone volunteers to help abandoned printers? Er, good for him/her. Volunteers do what they will, as long as their not actively doing harm.
Volunteers in shelters (mostly women) are doing that. They receive tax-payer support. Volunteers (where are they?) who would help men could probably get it too. Why the infighting? This is not a zero-sum game. Why the blaming of women’s shelter’s and the volunteers therein? This is puzzling and makes one suspect an ulterior motive.
Um, Biscuit Queen, you did not attack volunteers in your post (as my response implies). Are you perhaps advocating for a state-provided abuse shelter system for everyone?
Thanks for the replies. First, for Cheryl.
Your post is very long, so bear with me.
Feminists are welcome at Syg. Anyone is. No one can turn anyone against another. People can CHOOSE to turn against one another. We welcome debate, dissent, and arguement. Dr E would never ban anyone for stating an opinion, he will only ban for personal attacks. You can say anything you need to without personal attacks, a lesson ginmar for one could benifit from. I for instance have come here and pointed out the irony of people who claim to not need men demanding a man create space for them. I did not personally insult them, I did disribe their actions and my opinion on their actions.
As far as rad fem space, why women only? Shouldn’t it read rad fem only? And woman can be MRAs, as you are speaking to one. The woman only, excluding the very owner of the blog, to me is ironic.
Your entire example is a moot point. We are not speaking of 40 years ago, we are speaking of today. Amp stated that MRAs are unwilling to look at equitable examples of people. I did that. Do you have an answer why a supposed patriarchy would choose to fund women’s issues at astronomically higher rates than men?
Tuomas,
Good points. I do know that there is no funding available for men’s only shelters. VAWA insures millions are available for women, but the wording specifically excludes men. The government will not even start looking into the issues (with NH being the one exception) let alone fund them.
The other issue is that MRAs are few and spread out. I know of several private groups which offer one on one help, but there are no private men’s only shelters and only a handful in the US which accept men at all.
I think it is very unbiased of you :
“I, for one, support legal, tax-payer paid funding to reflect the ratio (and severity/need of help) of men/woman DV victims.”
I agree whole heartedly. If the funding was available, the shelters would be built and staffed. Unfortunately, unlike feminists, who tend to be middle to upper class white women, many MRAs are divorced dads without a pot to piss in. They just do not have the funds to start shelters from scratch and support two households.
If the funding were to be equitable, 17-38% of funding now allocated to women would need to be open for men. I do not see feminists allowing for that. I wish it were so, because the stories that I have heard rival that of any woman’s story. Abuse is abuse.
Of course I do not attack volunteers. Good for those who choose to donate their time in a woman’s shelter. I am opposing the funding.
They’re not. They’re demanding that a man who considers himself a feminist running a feminist blog make that space more politically comfortable for feminists than for anti-feminists, and that said man not make feminist feel unwelcome or enforce policies that have a disparate impact on feminist speech. It’s only special pleading if you start from the premise that Amp has to treat all views equally–since he admits his bias and argues that it’s supported by his political views, that premise doesn’t stand.
Personally, I find it pretty ironic that you’re trying to call feminists whiny little cowards but saying at the same time that you’re shocked, shocked! over a few expletives:
*snort* Okay. You’re banned. I don’t remember the specifics of Heart’s proposal, but I don’t think she ever abrogated the right to ban an anti-feminist just because of their chromosomal makeup.
It wasn’t equitable, though. Your example was the equivalent of saying, “Well, okay, so we have two middle-class people, one male and one female. They both happen to have breast cancer…” You’re ignoring that men in abusive situations usually do have more resources at their disposal. It’s unlikely that a man in an abusive marriage would be in the situation you described. This means that when you control for everything but gender, men and women in abusive marriages are also in radically different positions because of gender.
This was equally true of DV shelters for women, and of available support for those shelters, back before the enormous amount of organizing and activism that feminist did to address the problem.
Thank you for considering me unbiased (I’m not, I have my own biases in some issues).
To this I object:
I’m not sure if that’s true. And you did concede that the typical case of an abused woman would be a middle-class woman needs the husband’s income to maintain her lifestyle.
This is an attack that I see on feminists often, and even if it was true for an average feminist, which I’m not saying, it implies that feminists are “spoiled”, or looking for “special rights”, when fighting for women’s rights.
As for Men’s Right’s Activism (in general), the major objection I have to it is the misplaced blame, as in:
I just don’t think that feminists are the biggest obstacles against most (or even any) unfair issues affecting men, such as men-only conscription or draft, domestic violence against men etc. I don’t think feminists have that much power in society (esp. U.S.), and it does not correlate with most of my experiences with feminists, and the issues they decide to support (not to be confused with prioritize).
I blame traditional, restrictive gender roles which are bad for men and women, and are loaded with assumptions that will lead to bigotry in different areas.
(This is fast becoming off-topic. Perhaps I’ll give SYG a second look. And no, It is very unlikely that I will be converted. Much of the stuff I’ve seen there I just can not support.)
Biscuit Queen, you missed the point entirely. My point was, when women needed shelters 40 years ago, we created them. Starting in our own houses. Pooling our resources and renting space. Raising our own private money. We did not go crying to the government — as you’re suggesting men should be doing, or we should be doing for then(!) — to take care of us; we knew the government would *not* help us, that most of the men who ran the government were themselves abusive and that all were vested in our remaining chattel.
What you’re proposing is that now that women have done all of this good and necessary anti-DV work, men ought to stroll in and enjoy the fruits of our labors as though they had ever exerted themselves, beyond, oh, writing posts to SYG full of misspellings, typos, tall tales, disinformation, propaganda and misogynist rantings and ravings. I personally think it was a sad day when shelters began to take government funding. I think it was a sadder day when faith-based organizations began to assume control over shelters. The shelters which do the best work in my opinion are still those which are privately-owned and operated by radical feminists, and there still are a few of those. But leaving all that aside for a moment, women did all the work. And as I’ve already pointed out, men regularly, routinely *enjoy* the fruits of women’s anti-DV work, with the exception of shelters. So they should make like a bread truck, move their buns, and create their OWN shelters. Not sponge off of women all the while they are over on SYG wringing their hands and whining over all and any impediments to their ongoing sponging. Because men DO rape, violate, batter and murder women in large numbers, random women, strangers. Women do not do this to men. And so it is not appropriate for vulnerable women and children to have to share space with random strange men who may well batter, rape, abuse, and otherwise violate them in the shelters — something men don’t have to worry about at the hands of women, which is why, of course, men want into our shelters. But no. Women are in shelters for *protection*. Not to be exposed to the possible violence and predations of strange men. So again, I think that men need to get their acts together and create shelters.
Short and sweet: money goes to women’s shelters because women have worked our asses off to support and save the lives of battered women and their children. And because far and away it is men who abuse and batter women and not the other way around, despite all of the ongoing nonsense on that site you love so well, where everyday woman-hating flies right under your radar, and you come here with a straight face and defend the mod’s indefensible policies because he “only bans for personal attacks.” Tell you what: every misogynist word that is posted over there is a personal attack on every woman — including you. That is the point that radical feminists here have been making. Woman-hating that is “civil and courteous’ is an oxymoron. And those who practice it deserve to be banned, not those who call it out.
I asked for woman-only threads here, moderated by radical feminists but open to all women genuinely interested in radical feminist discussions. I abandoned my proposal mostly because I did not have the support of my peers. My interest was in supporting the radical feminists who still did and do want to post here and in calling attention to the fact that there *are* only a few because the rest have been effectively hounded off.
Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff (Heart)
So, Bisquit Queen, you’re basically blaming feminists for wanting to focus only on women. That’s a strange place to be coming from. I wasn’t aware that it was harmful for grown adults to choose what they want to focus their time and energy on.
As for this:
uh, by issues you do mean things like women’s shelters, right? You do see the irony of you calling them women’s issues and then wondering why there is higher rates of funding for women than men, right? uh, and you do realize that the funding exists because women, many of them feminists agitated for it? And, uh, you do realize that women are battered, raped, and murdered *by men* at an astronomical rate, right?
You want money for men? Go raise it. If you think that this is unfair, write your senator.
Piny writes:
Errm, that’s not true. Two wage earner families in the States can seldom afford to lose an entire wage earner, and that’s what it takes for a parent to leave an abusive situation with kids in tow — being able to survive on what they’ve got without the other parent’s financial assistance.
What screws men over is … other men. Q Grrl wrote “You want money for men? Go raise it.” Men would have to stop ridiculing any man who’s in an abusive relationship for that to happen, and since all “real men” are able to put the woman back in her place, men raising money for men’s shelters ain’t ever going to happen.
And that isn’t women’s problem either.
FCH,
While it may be hard surviving the drop to single income, shelters don’t provide any solution to that. Shelters aren’t long term housing, so at the end of the month (or however long you are permitted to stay), you are still going to have to find a way to make it on a single income. Shelters only help with not even being financially able to make a short term escape, long enough to set up a longer term escape.
The thing is, middle class people of either sex who have a job and credit cards in their own name, and a shared bank account, are reasonably well positioned financially to flee abuse. Raiding the bank account and living off the credit cards may be expensive, but it is doable. What isn’t easily doable is fleeing from a single income situation where it isn’t your income, and the credit cards and the bank account aren’t in your name. While there are probably abused men out there who have been pushed into that dependent of a situation, they are much much much rarer than women who have been pushed into that dependence.
An abused man is much more likely to have the resources to flee than an abused woman, class and race held equal. Because severely abused women are more common than severely abused men, and dependent abused women are more common than dependent abused men, there is more need for shelters for abused women than for shelters for abused men.
Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff/Heart,
Two Things I would like to point out
1 – You seem to know an awful lot about SYG. Ummm, heard about it from a friend? http://www.standyourground.com/forum/index.php
Ampersand himself has posted on SYG over 100 times and while he starts some heated arguments, so far I haven’t seen anyone tell him he doesn’t belong there. In fact, some people have openly stated that they appreciate his comments and hope he returns to post more in the future. Maybe next time you’re lurking there, you could post something yourself and contribute some well articulated, propurlie speld argyoomints.
2 – Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff/Heart wrote: “In general, men are a danger to women, not the other way around. And even if A woman is a danger to A man, the danger ends there. It doesn’t work the other way around. Women just aren’t out there raping and murdering men by the score, up to 50 or more over a lifetime for shits and giggles. That’s what men do. Not women. And that’s why women don’t like to see random men in shelters.”
Not that I would usually care, but this is quite a statement.
Genene Jones (in answer to your murder arguments), was convicted on 11 murders but is thought to have committed close 50 murders.
If you need more examples of female killers,
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/
http://www.crimetime.co.uk/features/carolannedavis2.php
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect11.htm
Here’s another interesting article
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/010203-9.htm
If you need still more examples, I would be happy to provide you with literally hundreds of more links. The thing you have to do is expand your search to include murderers from both genders – not just men, and it will be easier for you to find. The Patriarchy has yet to declare that women have no place in the murder business, although there does appear to be a glass floor for women when it comes to punishments and executions for such crimes against society.
Thanq yoo fer yore tyme.
In all honesty I hate the idea of radfem only threads. I feel as if it would be far too much a case of preaching to the choir. I can see the usefulness in cases where we’re discussing actual strategy (ie, specific ideas to combat anti-choice groups, for example), but even then I can’t help but think that we might be better off including everyone in the hopes that some kind of synergy might be created.
It seems to me that we don’t really need separate threads, what we actually need is better moderation and for obvious trolls to be banned as soon as they show up. Jaketh, for example, should not have been allowed to turn so many threads into a discussion about himself and his personal issues. On the other hand, we all rose to the bait. If we had just ignored him and refused to respond the diversion would not have been effective. So, I think a combination of better moderation, quicker banning of trolls and all of us trying not to feed the trolls when they do show up would work. Deleting troll posts wouldn’t be a bad idea either, especially if they’re all saying the same things over and over again, which they usually are.
As to the treatment given to Ginmar and other radfems here – Amp, that was truly bad form and does not reflect well on you. I think that the standard that you’re using vis a vis “civility” is ineffective and allows trolls to post all kinds of offensive things as long as they remain “polite” while silencing some voices which may be a bit short-tempered at times but which ultimately do add to the discussion in a valuable way. Swearing doesn’t actually kill anyone, and some of the things that jake, for example, has been allowed to post are far more offensive and far more malicious than anything Gin has ever said.
Honestly, I think you’re failing to take into account the fact that the meaning behind a person’s words matters just as much as the words themselves. Why go after someone whose heart you know is in the right place when there are so many genuinely unpleasant individuals on this blog who are in dire need of being told where they can stick their malicious but oh-so-politely-expressed opinions?
I’m trying to imagine what your point is. Are you saying that my being on SYG proves that radical feminists are welcome there? If so, that’s a bizarre point, because – as Cheryl knows better than anyone – I’m not a radical feminist. (From Cheryl’s perspective, I might not be a feminist at all. Which is fine with me; I have no right or desire to control how Cheryl’s opinion of me).
I do belong there, because that’s how Dr. Evil likes to run his board. However, it doesn’t follow that the way Dr. Evil runs things is the only legitimate way to run things, or the way that all forums must be run.
You quoted Cheryl saying “”In general, men are a danger to women, not the other way around.” I think you must have missed the essential words “in general,” or not understood that they applied to Cheryl’s entire paragraph. Cheryl didn’t deny that some women commit murder; she said that in general, men are more dangerous to women than the reverse. And that statement of Cheryl’s is well-supported both by studies and by crime statistics.
Interesting question – why are so many of the women here going out of their way to state that “I’m not a radical feminist by any means!”? I wouldn’t really call myself a pure radfem either, I have far too much of a socialist follow-the-money bent for that, but I’m finding what sound like attempts to dissasociate from radfem a bit depressing. Have we really retrenched so much that women are afraid to identify with radical feminism even on an explicitely feminist blog?
Britgirl:
My experience from reading radfem-only discussions on the Ms boards is that it’s not preaching to the choir at all. There are significant disagreements between different radical feminists. The disagreements are different ones than you’d get if it were a feminists-only discussion, or an anyone-allowed discussion, but different doesn’t mean less important or less interesting.
The nice thing about the internet is that there’s limitless space for different forums. In the end, it’s through having a variety of forums with a variety of rules and approaches – rather than any one-size-fits-all-forums rules – that the most voices will have a chance to speak.
I’ve already said, several times, that I’m going to be quicker to ban trolls. (JakeTK was banned quite a while ago). But the basic fact that there’s no consensus regarding who is and isn’t a troll isn’t going to go away; therefore, the problem will not be solved.
I do delete a whole bunch, especially posts by first-time MRAs and anti-feminist posters. But if I delete posts that have already been visible, people who replied or who were composing replies complain about it, and I can’t blame them.
With all due respect, your own (quite good) blog doesn’t have many posts with over 100 comments. I think you may not appreciate how much more work very active moderation becomes once the traffic increases. I can’t spend 24/7 sitting at my computer monitoring “Alas.” And when I am doing “Alas,” I also have to do admin stuff and write new posts; I can’t just do comments.
That you think I object to swearing, per se, tells me that you have absolutely no clue why I ban people, or why I banned Ginmar or Funnie.
I don’t feel that you’ve made a sincere attempt to read the moderation policies or to understand how I try to moderate. Your statements demonstrate not disagreement with what I’m trying to do, but absolute ignorance of what I’m trying to do; it’s like you’re responding to some image of me you’ve constructed in your head, rather than to anything I’ve actually said or done.
Unless you can start engaging with what I’ve actually said, I don’t think it will be possible for us to discuss this topic.
To be honest I’m not at all sure why you banned Ginmar, other than that she does get angry and lose her temper sometimes. The explanation given didn’t make sense to me, or to a lot of other people judging by the responses here. I’ve read the moderation policies, I’m just not sure that the way they are applied makes sense to me .
My main gripe is that MRAs don’t get smacked down sooner. Obviously you don’t have unlimited time to moderate – I wasn’t suggesting that you should. Might it help to recruit some regular posters that you trust to help out? Alas is so huge that it seems almost impossible that one person could manage it at this point without severely cutting into their personal time.
I’m not at all sure why you’re so offended or upset with me either. I’m not attacking you, and I’m not sure why you seem to think that I was intending to do so. You seem to be overeacting a bit to what really wasn’t a nasty comment or one that was intended to wound at all.
To clarify – I’m in the same boat as alsis etc. My patience with the MRAs and other assorted unpleasant folks who plague this blog is wearing thin, and I’m not sure that I agree with the principle that we should be required to play nice with them. I’m not convinced that niceness accomplishes anything when dealing with people whose basic position is that feminists are evil and should not exist. How does one reason with people like that?
And again, given that I’m basically saying exactly what many other have said, I’m not at all sure why you would get so annoyed with me. Nobody is implying that you should have unlimited time to run this blog, or that it’s an easy task. People are trying to communicate what they think would make it run better because we’re all attached to this space and don’t want to see it turn into troll-city to the point where all the interesting voices are gone. No one else gets to tell you how to run your blog, but is it not possible for us to disagree with you sometimes?
There was no “explanation given” by me. To give an explanation would require me to criticize Ginmar’s behavior in a forum where she has no chance to respond, and I’m unwilling to do that.
It’s a bit of a catch-22. Because I haven’t explained why Ginmar was banned, people make up or assume false reasons (i.e., swearing) and then criticize me for those false reasons. But if I do explain why Ginmar was banned, I’ll be making criticism of her a topic of conversation here, which is obviously unfair.
No one I’d trust (in fact, no one at all) has expressed any interest in the job – and I don’t blame them. And from what I’ve observed in other venues, sub-moderators aren’t a solution; sooner or later there’d be a legitimate dispute about a decision made by a sub-moderator, or two sub-moderators would disagree, and I’d be expected to referee, but it would be ten times as hard because I’d have to worry about not undercutting the sub-moderators.
And of course you can disagree with me. But you have to accept that I’ll disagree in turn, sometimes. My criticism of you was no harsher than yours of me, frankly, so I feel a bit as if you’re asking me to treat you much more gently than you’re willing to treat me.
I am banning trolls more often and more frequently – probably more often than you credit me for, since there are many banned trolls you never see. I’m trying the feminist-only threads, and so far they seem to have led to some good discussions.
But I feel that no matter what I do, most of my critics will never acknowlege that I’ve heard their concerns and I’m trying to improve things. I would appreciate it, for example, if you had said “I know you’re making changes in response to these problems, Amp, and I’ll wait a month or two to see how they work out.”
I admit I’ve gotten a little testy, and I apologize for that. With all due respect, maybe if you had spent a week reading dozens of posts, emails and comments about how badly you run your blog, you might find the subject wearing a mite thin, too. :-)
That would require dozens of people to be reading my blog, which isn’t likely to happen any time soon…
I assumed that my basically good intent would be assumed, since I’ve never had any beef with you in the past. No real idea how to get around the issue off too much traffic to moderate – it would seem that you’re a victim of your own success there.
And I wasn’t asking you to be gentle – it’s kind of funny to imagine me of all people asking such a thing, actually. I just wasn’t sure why you seemed to be percieving malice and/or intense criticism where in fact only CONSTRUCTIVE criticism was intended.
I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I thought you had bad intentions, or that I’m percieving malice. I never thought that you had bad intentions, or that you were malicious. On the contrary, I value your postings here.
The main thing that bothered me about your advice – which I realize, was intended to be constructive – is that to me, you seemed to be advising me to do things I had already explicitly stated my intention to do, in the moderation policies. This made me feel as if you were criticizing me without having really read the moderation policies first.
And, as I’ve said, circumstances over the last week have made me testy, which is of course no fault of yours. :-)
Eh, no hard feelings. I’ve been absent for a while, so I may not have had time to notice the policies take effect yet. There is still hope!
Wish there was something I could do to help with the troll invasion. In your position I think I’d be a lot less nice to people.
There was no “explanation given” by me. To give an explanation would require me to criticize Ginmar’s behavior in a forum where she has no chance to respond, and I’m unwilling to do that.
Frankly, this doesn’t work.
(Though again, as I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not arguing that you should unban Ginmar: your blog, your rules, you ban and unban whom you please for any reason you please.)
If Ginmar was banned for some unacceptable behavior, fairness requires that you outline the unacceptable behavior for which she was banned. Hell, I’d say that applies to anyone banned – including JakeTK. You’ve given a confused explanation in e-mail, but that didn’t make sense either.
Or you simply say upfront that people can be banned on whim, your whim, and you will never offer any explanation or justification for their banning. Which, frankly, looks like the real reason Ginmar was banned: your whim.
No, not really. But your bias against me requires that you criticize me on any possible grounds, no matter how unfair or untrue. The funny thing is, if I had done what you suggest and outlined why Ginmar was banned, you would have been the first one to castigate me for the unfairness of criticizing her after banning her so she can’t reply.
(Edited to add: Also, recall that at the time she was banned, Ginmar was claiming on livejournal that she had left “Alas” on her own. I didn’t want to contradict her, in case that was how she wanted to spin things, and I never said she was banned until after she said so herself.)
You mean, I could say something upfront like “People aren’t banned based on breaking rules; they’re banned based on my perception that they’re moving ‘Alas’ discussions away from what I’d like ‘Alas’ discussions to be”? Good point. I should say that somewhere.
But your bias against me requires that you criticize me on any possible grounds, no matter how unfair or untrue.
As your bias against me requires that you assume that all criticism from me is unfair and untrue.
I see both the above statements as equally true.
The funny thing is, if I had done what you suggest and outlined why Ginmar was banned, you would have been the first one to castigate me for the unfairness of criticizing her after banning her so she can’t reply.
As you didn’t outline why Ginmar was banned, we’ll never know how I would have reacted if you had, would I? I objected – fairly, I think – to people who don’t like Ginmar turning up here and treating Alas A Blog as a safe space in which to spread slanderous lies about Ginmar. I suggest that either a blogowner is upfront about “People are banned on my whim” or else they explain why someone is banned. Your choice.
“People aren’t banned based on breaking rules; they’re banned based on my perception that they’re moving ‘Alas’ discussions away from what I’d like ‘Alas’ discussions to be”?
Which would mean that anti-feminists don’t move Alas discussions away from what you’d like Alas discussions to be, but radical feminists do, which is why you find yourself banning radical feminists but assuring anti-feminists their views will be treated with respect? Well, yes. As I’ve said, I don’t see Alas A Blog as a feminist-friendly blog, and that’s why.
Amp, you have the patience of a saint. If they cannot see why ginmar was banned, perhaps they need to reread the mod policy. Sometimes it is easier to see things from the outside I guess.
I don’t think that’s really fair, Jesu. Amp banned someone yesterday who I think could fairly be described as anti-feminist, not so much (as best anyone other than Amp can tell) for disagreeing with feminist viewpoints as for doing so at excruciating length, being stone deaf to counterarguments, and, most important, being rude to other commenters (without, IIRC, ever using even a mild swear word).
I know because I was one of the other commenters.
As far as I can see Amp bends over backwards to be fair to everyone, and he bends a little farther for feminists.
Actually the ban I referred to happened on Monday. My mistake.
I don’t think that’s really fair, Jesu.
If Ampersand’s policy is to ban people who “move ‘Alas’ discussions away from what [he’d] like ‘Alas’ discussions to be” then isn’t it fair to assume that regular anti-feminist posters are not “moving ‘Alas’ discussions away from what [he’d] like ‘Alas’ discussions to be”? That, for example, Robert’s comments are moving ‘Alas’ discussions right along in the direction Amp wants – since Robert has license to comment how he likes in the sure knowledge that Amp will not ban him?
Actually, I’ve banned many, many times more anti-feminists than I’ve ever banned feminists (radical or otherwise). And radical feminists get significantly more leeway from me than anti-feminists do.
A few radical feminist posters have moved discussion away from what I’d like it to be, true. But others have been among my favorite posters, and I only regret that they don’t post more often.
Charles writes:
Sorry — I’m going to disagree. If middle class couples with children had the kinds of resources you’re describing, I think we’d see a lot fewer economic problems of all kinds. Perhaps that exists among the upper-middle and upper classes, but the middle class and working class continues to live paycheck to paycheck with inadequate savings to do much of anything. Battered husbands may not be dependent on their wives, but they are dependent on their own continued income stream. And given the hostility that most employers continue to demonstrate towards men who bring “family problems” into the workplace, the risk a battered husband faces if “family problems” (read: fleaing domestic violence) creep into the workplace are very real.
I think we haven’t the slightest idea how many “severely abused men” exist. If there’s a crime that’s more underreported than rape, it has to be domestic abuse against men. And repeated assertions that such men don’t exist, as opposed to respectfully listening to men who tell of domestic violence, doesn’t help — it’s the same thing that happened decades again when domestic violence against women was dismissed. Except, as I wrote above, male culture makes reporting an abusive wife an almost suicidal act. Patriarchy’s response to battered wives is typically something along the lines of “she deserved it”. Its response to battered husbands is to futher emasculate the man and push him to the margins of not-a-real-man.
Now, is that a feminist problem? No, sorry, it just isn’t. Is it a “women’s problem”? No, sorry, not a problem for women either. But reinforcing the belief that men could just leave if they wanted to (because they supposedly have resources), and that it doesn’t happen to men anyway (because male culture forces underreporting) is a feminist problem if feminists are the ones reinforcing those myths.
Rather than telling men that the problems they are reporting don’t exist — which is what men are being told by the “Manly Man Police” as well, my suggestion would be telling men who report these problems in feminist spaces to work with other men to solve those problems, outside of feminist spaces. Women, feminists and non-feminists alike, have little or no power to change male culture. Male entitlement to women’s resources makes allowing men into feminist spaces it’s own set of problems as well. But saying “this doesn’t happen” or “this isn’t a problem” or even “this isn’t as severe a problem” does help men solve the problem.
Correction:
That should be
I think Amp would ban Robert or anyone else who behaved as I described in comment 338. I disagree with most of what Robert says, but he is, trust me, not remotely in the same league.
Actually, not true. Until you began attacking me a week or two ago, you were one of my favorite posters (largely due to your excellent posts on Family Scholars Blog), and I was always pleased to see you post here. I had absolutely no pre-existing bias against you. If anything, the opposite was true; I had a bias in your favor.
And it’s not just my opinion that you say things that aren’t true; there is absolutely no way that this comment can be construed as true, for example. You made factual claims that are objectively false. That in and of itself doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that you didn’t have the decency to post saying “oops, sorry about that” when I pointed out your errors.
It’s true that, in general, whether or not I ban posters has to do with if they’re moving the discussion towards what I’d like it to be. However, it certainly doesn’t follow that I think every individual post by people I don’t ban is being helpful. Since in the particular thread you cite I explicitly called one of Robert’s comments “trollish” and also criticized his posts in general, it’s hardly fair to imply that I approve of his posts there.
I don’t recall anyone here saying that such men don’t exist. Unless you can directly quote someone here saying that no battered men exist, please be careful not to imply otherwise.
And I do listen respectfully to men who tell of domestic violence; but I don’t respect the tactic of using stories of being battered as a club for attacking feminism and feminists.
MRAs have been told that, both on this thread and in many other cases, again and again and again. After years of this, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that many MRAs are more interested in bashing feminism than in trying to build their own resources to address men’s problems.
Amp writes:
There’s a huge difference between “none” and the comparisions Charles made. And I think shifting the discussion from the claims Charles made, and which I responded to, to “none” is dishonest on your part. And I think I covered the entire range of possible responses — from “not at all” to “not as severe” — in my comment that I think I bent over backwards in my efforts to avoid implying anything untrue.
Hey, no disagreement there — feel free to tell them all to go home or otherwise get lost.
I’m all for “Men’s Rights” (which I seem to recall is why you banned me from the “feminist only” threads — I’m also all for Latina rights, people-of-color rights, deaf rights, blind rights, Cerebral Palsy rights, vegetarian rights, immigrant rights, non-immigrant rights, workers rights, etc.), I just happen to be all for men solving their own problems and leaving women alone without us making anything potentially worse by dismissing or trivializing their problems. (And note that again I covered the range of responses from “it doesn’t happen” (dismissing) to “it isn’t as severe” (trivializing)).
1) I banned you from the “feminist only” threads because I didn’t know you from Adam (although I vaugly recall you posting on Ms), but someone I do know called you an anti-feminist, and so I decided to take a “wait and see” approach.
2) Citing a range of responses is only honest if the people you’re responding to have actually made responses the range describes. If I say that my librarian’s responses to my fines ranged from allowing me to pay them to berating me and denying I had ever paid a fine at all, that would be an unfair statement, because in fact my liberian’s responses have never reached the “berate and deny” end of the range at all.
Similarly, I don’t think a single one of Charles’ comments “asserted” that battered men “don’t exist,” and to imply that he said otherwise – even as part of a range of characterizations – is mistaken. Unless you can quote him asserting that “such men don’t exist.” Which I take it you cannot.
In context, “it isn’t as severe” is not trivializing. When MRAs argue that battered men are as or more severe a problem, they are doing so in support of two core MRA beliefs: First, that feminists hate men, and second, that patriarchy doesn’t exist. The purpose of responding to such MRA claims is not to trivialize men’s pain, but to try and refute the anti-feminist claims made by MRAs. I’ve posted more about this here (scroll to the near-bottom of the post).
Amp,
I think that offering a range of responses means I’m not responding just to Charles. If that’s how you read it, my apologies.
As for whether or not “it isn’t as severe” is or isn’t trivializing, I don’t think anyone knows if it is or isn’t “as severe”. Domestic violence conflict dynamics have all kinds of problems in deciding “as severe”. I’ve read Gelles, Farrell, et alia, as well as responses and responses to responses.
My suggestion was, is, and always will be “You MRA types go work on this in your own space.” Having known 180lb men who were beaten by 140lb women and who thought “It wasn’t that bad”, or who were embarassed as all get out to even talk about it, I’m personally inclined to believe it’s more severe than men report. But again, that’s not my problem either as a woman or a feminist. I try to acknowledge that the problem exists, provide men with actionable advice to deal with the problem, and then get them out of my hair. I think that saying “It isn’t as severe” only gives them more fuel for their anti-feminist beliefs, which seems to be working counter-purpose.
I’m gonna have to find that awesome post by flea.
FCH,
I should have included the standard: “obviously, however many abused men there are, there should still be resources to help them. Men, and society as a whole, need to work to develop and provide those resources. Attacking feminnists and battered women’s shelters for not doing so (particularly when battered women’s shelters are generally happy to work with people who are trying to build a support strucutre for battered men (rather than attacking the support strucutre for battered women)) is a bunch of junk.”
My feeling was that that had been said enough times by sufficiently many peope in this thread that iti didn’t need repeating, but that was obviously a mistake on my part. There is no reason anyone would automatically assume I agreed on that point.
I stand by my claim that most middle class people have at least one non-maxed out credit card. The MRA who started this little discussion specifically said middle class. Had the MRA said poor people, or people living pay-check to pay-check, that would have changed my response. None the less, (and I have no studies to support this, and am just going off of broad cultural trends) an abused man is far more likely to have a job, and to have access to thje family checking account. This means that he is better positioned to cash his paycheck and use it to flee, and also to raid the bank account and flee. Can every battered man do this? No. Can more battered men than women do so? Yes.
Can every battered man do this? No. Can more battered men than women do so? Yes.
I appreciate your thought in discussing this.
So the man can flee with the kids. Then what? He can be charged with kidnapping them if she immediately goes to the judge, files a restraining order and charges him with DV. She will be given temporary custody and he will be given a warrent, no questions asked.
Say they do flee, where will they go? He has no help, unless his family or friends are willing t help him. The police will not protect him, the judge will likely not give him a restraining order. I have never heard of a woman being denied one, but I have heard men say they were denied them.
I will have to finish this later…
What do battered men have to do with creating space on a blog for radical feminists to share their thoughts?
One would think that we’d asked for the stars *and* the moon.
Can any one say “red herring?”
Well, anytime you talk about women, and women space, there’s always someone who will tell you that you’ve failed to give enough attention to the needs of men.
Hmm, I haven’t been to SYG in ages. Last I heard, I was included in some terrible triad of feminazis or something like that. I get raked over the coals enough in real life, I don’t need to go to a BB looking for it, lol.
Charles,
I think I’m going to take Q Grrl’s que and leave this where I left it. Perhaps Amp will grace us with a thread where we can discuss the overall stupidity of MRA claims from every angle imaginable =>^.^<=
“What do battered men have to do with creating space on a blog for radical feminists to share their thoughts?”
Indeed. What a perfect example of “how to sidetrack any feminist discussion”. I swear there must be some kind of manual that all anti-feminists are trained to follow…
And I second the request for a space in which to discuss 101 reasons why most MRA claims are patently ridiculous.
I’m in total agreement on not having this discussion on this thread.
I think the excuse for starting it on this thread was Heart’s argument for why women’s oppression is the original oppression, and since that got moved to its own thread, it probably should have gone there, except that I don’t think Biscuit Queen counts herself a feminist or profeminist, so she wasn’t allowed on that thread.
Of course, this isn’t the Amp’s administration policies thread either, so basically, this thread has been mostly a derailed thread for some time now. Understandably, since the question of whether Alas should have women only, radical feminist friendly threads ended when Heart decided against doing them.
Amp: But your bias against me requires that you criticize me on any possible grounds, no matter how unfair or untrue.
Jes: As your bias against me requires that you assume that all criticism from me is unfair and untrue.
Jes: I see both the above statements as equally true.
Jes: As your bias against me requires that you assume that all criticism from me is unfair and untrue.
Amp: Actually, not true.
Precisely. I said, both statements – your claim that I’m biased against you which means you can dismiss all my criticisms of your behavior as unfair and untrue, and the mirror charge I put up – are equally true. Which is to say, equally untrue. You have simply decided that you can dismiss any criticisms of your behavior as down to my supposed bias against you. I don’t have a bias against you: I just don’t like the way you’re behaving.
Jesu,
In the moderation thread, you criticized Amp for referring to Alas as feminist friendly. Amp responded by removing the phrase. When you pointed out that that wasn’t what you had wanted, that what you wanted was feminist friendly space at Alas, Amp decided to create feminist friendly threads (no non-feminists allowed) on Alas. Recently, you accused Amp of ignoring anti-Ginmar posts. Amp couldn’t correct that error on his part because you were wrong and he hadn’t done that. You have also objected to the fact that he banned Ginmar, but still allows posters like jaketk to post. He can’t really correct that error either, as he has already banned jaketk, gwallan, and more recently Dorset. You have also faulted him because his moderation policy should really be clear that he will ban anyone he feels like banning. Good suggestion. It already does. You have also objected to the fact that Robert is still allowed to post. Amp refuses to accept other people’s opinion that Robert decreases the degree to which Alas is an Amp friendly place. However, he repeatedly cautions Robert when Robert is particularly trollish. Not what you want, but not a complete discounting of your complaints.
So, I count 2 complaints from you that Amp respected and changed his policies on, 3 complaints that were factually untrue (all of which have been noted, and none of which you have ever acknowledged that your complaints were off base), and 1 complaint (made by many people) which Amp refuses to budge on.
So, indeed, your accusation against Amp (that he dismisses all your criticisms because you are furious with him) is simply wrong. On the other hand, his criticism of you (that you have been repeatedly attacking him for things that were just plain false, not that that was all you had been doing) is true. You have made no acknowledgment that many of your recent accusations are simply wrong. Given that, it is hard to see what you are doing as anything other than flinging accusations in the hope some of them stick.
You don’t like the fact that he allows Robert. You don’t like the fact that he was being over-tolerant of MRA trolls. You don’t like the fact that he banned Ginmar. Two of those aren’t going to change (although Robert is now banned from several of the more interesting threads, and will be banned from more in the future). One has. Other than making my life partner’s life miserable (remember that thing about how he hates being bullied?), is there anything you think you have been accomplishing in your posts concerning how much his moderation policy sucks (since he decided on what his new moderation policy is?). Your posts before he decided on a policy were useful and important. Your posts (on this one subject) since then just feel like abuse.
Do you think he’s going to ban Robert because you abuse him over it?
Do you think he’s going to ask Ginmar back because you abuse him over it?
He knows your opinion on these two subjects very clearly.
What is your objective?
Jesu,
In a conversation with Amp, I realized that my comment about bullying in the preceding comment might combine with private conversations between the two of you and be taken by you as an implicit threat that you are on the verge of being banned.
While I obviously have no say in such matters, I thought I should make it clear that I know for a fact that you are very highly regarded by Amp, and are in the category of people who would basically have to declare that they were a sworn enemy of the site and had no goals here other than to destroy it and to make Amp miserable, before Amp would think about banning you (and even then, he’d check with you first to make sure you meant it, and that it wasn’t hyperbole). You can go on attacking him in the manner you have been doing recently for as long as you like, and you will never get banned for it.
I still stand by my question of what you hope to accomplish by it.
Hey, any thread with this many posts in it is going to derail sooner or later.
As for needing such threads, Heart isn’t the only feminist on this board, and certainly isn’t the only feminist who would like to see feminist-only threads. I could write something really snarky about radical feminist only threads, but won’t. I do see, however, a need for feminist and women only threads.
(Now if Amp would only let me out of time-out …)
Like Charles and FCH, I really stop worrying about “derailment” after the first hundred posts, on most threads. (That’s not a hard rule, a lot depends on the context of the particular thread.)
FCH, you can feel free to post in “feminist only” threads on “Alas”; your posts here (especially regarding your opposition to C4M) have convinced me that you are a feminist, as I understand the term.
(But – with all due respect – please be careful to be ultra-respectful when dealing with posters you have a past history with; I don’t want to see past flamewars from other forums continued on “Alas.”)
Amp,
Well … an alternative would be to change my name and come back. A lot of the “history” is related to personal information that I try to avoid discussing at all these days, but which is drug up and thrown in my face, or which I feel is used as an excuse to create conflict.
FWIW, in the fora where the conflict has existed the longest and been the worst, I long since resorted to using other ‘nyms to avoid the problem. Needless to say, I don’t have that problem in any fora where the information I prefer not to discuss isn’t associated with that identity.
Charles: What is your objective?
None, really. I was venting. I am angry. I don’t believe you can make a man who isn’t a feminist into a feminist by being angry: I just find that venting is a relief to my feelings. I wrote at more length about this on my journal.
A question that arrives very late in the day but is nonetheless valid. I posted for quite awhile during my teenage years on the ms. boards and found attitudes hostile towards me because I would bot reveal my gender. Visiting yet another discussion years later I am still utterly dumbfounded as to how the creation of a space purely female can work if you are basing identity upon a binary rather than an individual basis. Women only is the cry! And just what are women? Oh I get it, women decide that. Utterly baffling. I know these debates have been wrung through the mangle time and time again and I don’t wish to bring hostility to the board, however, the idea of excluding people based upon gender makes absolutely no logical sense in the fight against the stranglehold on women…in fact it’s surely hypocritical.
“And just what are women? Oh I get it, women decide that. Utterly baffling”
No, very simple & straightforward.
Well, since men are the one’s implementing the stranglehold on women, it makes nothing *but* sense. Duh. Double duh even.
If you want to have your own “She woman man haters club” I don’t have a problem with it. But my experiences here on Alas have been fairly positive because of the sharing of ideas, not a restriction on the same. Quite frankly, I want to have dialog with feminists, especially radical ones, because I simply don’t get it a lot of the time and I need to know where you are coming from. My understanding of patriarchy and male dominance, especially the feminist take on it, has been greatly influenced and enhanced because of the open discussions I have been able to participate in here at Alas. I can’t get that if I’m shut out of the hen house.
Then, and this is only a suggestion, perhaps you should avoid insulting comments like, “If you want to have your own “She woman man haters club”…
“Hen house.”
gengwall, I don’t think that you’ll ever know where we’re coming from. Not in a thousand years.
I wasn’t trying to be insulting;I was trying to be humorous. The reference, which I’m sure you know, is to the “He Man Woman Haters Club” of “Little Rascals” fame. That group was an attempt by the “Our Gang” version of MRA’s, if you will, to have a space for only males where they could discuss men’s rights. (Of course, they were all boys, not men, but that isn’t my point.) The “He Man Woman Haters Club” moniker has always been a humerous reference in my circles for men wanting to express themselves in a male version of how women express themselves as feminists. I certainly would not be offended, therefore, if I wanted to have a men only MRA topic driven blog and it was referred to as a “He Man Woman Haters Club”. Knowing the cultural reference, I would take it in the humerous spirit it was intended. It is that spirit in which I reversed it and used it here. I did not intend to offend.
alsis – Are people really that intense about this? I mean, can a person not inject any cultural humour into the discussion. Sheez.
I wasn’t trying to be insulting;I was trying to be humorous.
Yeah. I got it the first time. I know that you weren’t trying to be insulting. But you were insulting. I tend to think that alsis is correct (and she also noted the “hen house” comment which I didn’t even bother with). You’ve been hanging around Alas long enough that I think that you would have gotten it by now if you were ever going to understand. I could write a lengthy explanation of why it is offensive, but I’m not sure that there is any point to it. I’ll leave it at this – “man hating” is stereotypical phrase used (inaccurately) by anti-feminists & misogynists to describe feminists. How could you not have known that?
Also, as a note of communication, it’s fine that you wrote a lengthy explanation of your intention. But the lack of an apology is glaring.
Fuck off.
Just because some man thought it was funny to denigrate women half a century ago doesn’t mean you’re not personally full of shit when you use it.
Your inability to parse out humor from misogyny is exactly why we form women-only space. Don’t like it? Tough. Cry me a fucking river.
You wouldn’t know feminist dialogue if you were choking on it.
And why the hell would we want to waste our time on you anyway?
gengwall, your culture is misogynist. Wrap your brain around that. I don’t have to laugh at a misogynist term that denigrates serious discussion as the clucking of hens. Get real.
Hey, the only reason Music Man gets away with it in “Pick A Little, Talk A Little” is because it’s half a century old. What’s your excuse ?
Jake – point well taken. This is where I screw up with my wife a lot as well. So, I appologize. And I do so specifically for being offensive (even if I don’t quite understand how). You are correct, and I noted as much, that I don’t get it a lot of the time. Actually, and I’m not asking for it now, but such lengthy explanations are necessary for me much of the time because I don’t think that way. So, when I say I don’t get it, I really mean I can’t possibly fathom it. That was basically my point to begin with. I need these discussions and if I’m excluded from them, then I can’t really grow in my understanding.
Q Girl – but if you “form women-only space” exactly because of my “inability to parse out humor from misogyny”, then how am I ever to gain the ability to do such parsing? Help me understand why it is offensive. (Not here but in the general dialog). You seem to understand that I think it’s funny and I certainly understand you don’t, but we can’t possibly understand each other if we only discuss it in gender segregated forums. Now, you may not have any desire to understand me and my kind. But I sincerely do desire to understand you and yours.
Alsis – It was a bad choice. But I wasn’t thinking so much about The Music Man….until you brought it up. Now, I will avoid making a number of Music Man relevant comments because I suspect, as funny as I might find them, they will just get me in trouble again.
Gengwell — at least you helped me see the light on one thing. Guys like you object to women-only space because you insist on defining women by the presence or absence of men in their lives.
Women, without men, are obviously man-hating.
Whatever.
At least I know that when I go home tonight and make-out with my girlfriend it won’t be because I like her — it’ll be because I hate men!
Gengwell:
Get.this.through.your.thick.skull.
Women form women-only space for themselves.
We don’t do it for men.
You seem to think that if one small space is created by women for women-only, that all men are somehow going to be cast out to the cold and wolves. You seem to think that if we talk to ourselves only, we will never, ever, ever, talk to you again.
How childish and asinine of you.
I’m not worried about you getting it. Obviously you’ve reached adulthood and you still can’t seem to grasp the concept that women are equally human. Why do you think I can make a difference? You’ve swallowed the social misogynist bullshit hook, line, and sinker. I don’t care. You are one amongst millions.
When I endorse women-only space, it is for women, so that we can cut through the bullshit that you so easily swallow and regurgitate.
I think you missed my point. I have no objection to women only space but I would find it counterproductive here at Alas. This space has been very helpful to me in understanding feminists specifically because it is not gender segregated. This conversation is a perfect example. Alas, and I think the moderation policy points this out, is a fairly unique and beneficial place on the web. And it has been an extreamly beneficial place for me (even if it takes some time for ideas to get through this thick skull.) I hope, at least at times, it has also benefited from my input (obviously not this time).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the original question was about women only space HERE. That proposal is what I’m addressing.
Of course you find it counterproductive! I doesn’t involve you!
Have you even stopped to consider that it might be productive for, ya know, women?
Why is your penis the measuring stick of productivity?
Well of course it would be productive for (some) women. But, as I have tried to point out, Alas does not promote gender inequality. I would like to think this is a space for all genders to engage in productive dialog.
BTW – isn’t the penis remark just the kind of offensive gender sterotyping that I just offended y’all with? Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s funny, if not just a little hypocritical.
Nah, gengwall. Your tone here shows that you obviously find your “in trouble” status amusing, and probably novel as well. Too bad your tone is neither amusing nor novel to me. It’s just exasperating and tedious. I think I’ll just go back to avoiding you.
Well, I find lots of things amusing. But I am trying to have a serious conversation.
This must be what Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff meant in the original post. You seem to be experiencing the same thing that she described Ginmar going through. Does my behavior really constitute:
“trolling, …misogyny, …endless diversion, … ongoing defenses of indefensible anti-feminist, anti-woman behaviors”?
*shakes head in disbelief* I guess I’ll shut up.
*deep breath* I usually just lurk around here, but I feel compelled to comment. Gengwall, I know that you have been posting here a while, and while you generally seem to be ok, your comments were way out of line. I got the Lil Rascals reference, but it still bothered me. I’m sure that you were aware of the way that feminists are often called man-haters. And then, to compare the idea of a woman-only space to a hen house implies that women cannot have anything important to say to each other, that it’s all just meaningless noise. I don’t know if you consciously meant to say that or not, but you need to examine that language you use more carefully if you want feminists to enter into dialogue with you.
Secondly, you could still learn from woman-only spaces, by, you know, READING these hypothetical threads and reflecting on them. If these threads happened, they would only be a fraction of the threads on this blog–you’d still be able to comment on the others. Woman-only space would in no way silence you completely, but it would give women a chance to talk among themselves without having to explain why calling feminist space a hen house is insulting.
Snowe – agreed, and I did appologize. One of the big things I have learned here in discussions (although obviously I’m not too good at applying it yet) is that effect is just as important as intent. I do have a problem with not carefully considering effect. On the other hand, sometimes the effect that is felt just surprises the heck out of me.
As far as learning from women only spaces, it probably wouldn’t happen. I need to be able to ask questions and get clarification. I suspect simply reading them would be like trying to read a foreign language to me. But you are correct, they would not destroy the other parts of Alas that I can interact on. My fear, though, is that the radical feminists would not participate at all in those other arenas. Nothing I have read in this thread so far makes me think otherwise. If that turned out to be true, I think it would be detrimental to Alas and would not help me grow (boy did I want to come up with a “penis as productivity measure” line there but just couldn’t quite get it)
Gengwell: nothing would stop you from starting your own blog to raise your feminism related questions.
Ah yes – but it all is so much better done here. Besides, I don’t know half the questions until I see them being flushed out here. A lot about what you think of me is probably true. I have been brought up my whole life in an environement with a particular world view – one that is decidedly patriarchal. I am learning what is wrong with that as I go. But until I had some of these ideas laid out and examined, primarily here, I had no idea they existed. I hardly could come up with them on my own.
Oh yes – and I forgot to mention – like anyone would come and read my blog let alone participate on it. Especially radical feminists.
OK, but that begs the question: why should we have to bear your weight while you piggyback on our political struggle?
I’m sure Amp will kick me off if I get too heavy ;-)
gengwall, you wrote:
to which Q Grrl responded (though her response came more than a few comments later):
Q Grrl beat me to the question I wanted to ask you, gengwall–now that I have caught up at least with the last part of these comments–but I guess I want to underline it because it is enormously presumptuous of you to claim the right…and whether you realize it or not, you are claiming a right…to impose your questions about feminism in any of its myriad forms on women, and while you might not think that objecting to a woman-only space because you won’t be able to ask your questions is imposing, believe me it is. The fact that you feel that your need to ask questions of these women is sufficient reason to object, independently of what the women who might deisre such a space feel the benefit of the space is to them, is where the imposition comes in.
Perhaps more to the point, there are any number of strategies you could use to ask your questions after reading women-only threads, among them seeking out radical feminist women in what business people used to call the “brick and mortar” world or reading books written by them–many of which are quite accessible–or taking courses in feminism, not to mention the fact that the original post, or one of Heart’s subsequent comments, regarding women-only spaces explicitly envisioned other threads on Alas where the content of those threads could be discussed by everyone.
My sense is, however, that with the exception of that last item, all of those strategies would take you pretty far outside your comfort zone–hell, they regularly take me outside my comfort zone–but the fact is that coming to terms with the feminist critique of patriarchal culture not as an intellectual exercise and not as something from which you can pick and choose things that help you be more respectful of the women in your life, but rather as a way of re-envisioning pretty much everything that men and women have been taught–to the benefit of men and the detriment of women–about how the world is and should be organized, means being willing to live with discomfort and to let that discomfort become part of how you give meaning to the world.
Part of that discomfort…if, as a man, you take the notion of male privilege and the need to dismantle it seriously…means accepting that there are places where women have the right to demand that we not enter and that this demand is something we have an obligation respect. My guess is, though, that you don’t see the need to dismantle male privilege in the way that feminists do because male privilege is enshrined in Evangelical Christianity as the organizing principle of the world. I am not interested in getting into a discussion with you about the nature of male privilege within the world view of the Christianity that you practice; I am merely pointing out that the very fact that it is male privilege makes it antithetical to feminism, especially radical feminism. More to the point, the fact that you endorse that kind of male privilege, not to mention the male deity who stands behind it, makes it a forgone conclusion that your stake in whatever it is you would be trying to learn from a women-only space would most likely be antithetical to feminism as well.
I have already gone on way too long, so I will stop here.
AMEN!
Look, I doubt there will ever be women-only threads on “Alas,” for the obvious reason that I’m male and it would be a bit awkward to have a woman-only thread on a site maintained and administrated by a man.
But if there were women-only threads, then that would still leave other threads left over. I’m a great believer in “yes and!” rather than “either or” when it comes to these things. The internet has room for all kinds of spaces, and I think we should take advantage of that.
Gengwall, I’m happy that you find “Alas” helpful to you, and I’m happy that your views on some issues have seemingly been influenced in a positive direction because you’re hanging out here. But this site is not here for you in particular. Take what’s useful for you as a gift. But no one is obliged to give you gifts; if not all stuff here is useful for you, that’s okay, too.
Okay, I just have to jump in here again, even though I just posted something quite long. See, gengwall, it is precisely that kind of trivializing humor–and the fact that you don’t see it as trivializing–that is part of the problem. It’s like when I was a kid and people used to make Jewish jokes and they would get upset if I got upset, accusing me of not having a sense of humor. The fact that the jokes simply were not funny to me, that these people could not step out of their own heads far enough to see why the jokes were not funny to me, or, if they could step out of their heads and understand, that they didn’t see that understanding as reason enough to stop making the jokes if for no other reason than a simple basic respect for my feelings (forget for a moment whether or not the jokes should have been made at all)–all of that not only made me furious, but it also made seriously question whether they were truly my friends at all. The jokes you have made in this thread at women’s expense, and at the expense of the points women want to make, are no different.
I accept all of this and will try to process it as best I can. Thanks for the input. I have to admit, I have a hard time responding even now without being glib. Not because I hold little regard for the comments but because it is my nature to try and “lighten up” situations. I don’t want to say any more. I really feel like I’m walking on eggshells here.