A Personal Statement February 28, 2013
Posted by FCM in books!, feminisms, health, meta, politics, WTF?.Tags: dave thomas, field of dreams, radfem 2013, radfem hub, reformism, university sponsored feminism
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please bother me for the password so you can read my super sikkrit thoughts. j/k. (this is not a password protected post. read on.)
i have experienced a blogging crisis recently. is this a first-world problem? oh dear. actually, its a speech problem, a silencing problem. women around the world experience this, and i experience it too. this is why i am a radical feminist, afterall. because i share class: female with 3.5 billion women globally who are rountinely, systematically and very easily silenced, by men, and by male technology, and you know, rape, and threats of rape. when we do get a word in edgewise, its precariously positioned indeed. we are no-platformed globally, and we speak from atop the head of a pin, standing on one foot, juggling knives. the lucky ones have a getaway-car waiting at the base of the mountain. sometimes the driver has been shot. me, i have a bicycle.
a bicycle? the head of a pin? is this supposed to be symbolic or something? no — its just words, meant to convey an image, a feeling and above all, an un-obscured message. the message might be a feeling, of course. did it work?
but its not symbolic — i dont do symbolism. i dont have time, and i was never good at it anyway. i tried, when i was young and first thought i wanted to write — a play, as i recall. with symbolism! hester prynne’s illegitimate (foreign, irritating, secret, precious) daughter was named pearl — get it? and as i was getting my characters in order, i realized okay, this is going to be a hell of a lot of work. this is going to take so much research, and there are some things that i — as a 16-year old (and girl) — simply could not know. like, i wanted one of my characters to be an adult man from new york city (i think?) how was i supposed to write that? that project went nowhere, once i realized that. i had written some notes in a small, extremely cheaply made journal covered in black chinese polyester silk. i never used the journal for anything after that. what a waste.
oh, and i just remembered! my very first big writing project was going to be a book! i started it when i was 10, over summer vacation. the only line i recall: a wave of excitement splashed over her body as she…did something. i know she — a high school aged girl — was going to a dance at school, so she was either entering the school or the gym. at 3:00 in the afternoon. because thats what time the dances were, when i was in 4th grade. somehow i knew i was being naive though, and that high-school dances worked differently, but how? i never finished the book. i remember sitting at the table in the air conditioning in a wet bathing suit, typing on an old typewriter with a couple missing keys that poked into my fingers. like, really bad. it was almost useless as a typewriter. my sister and our friend made “tea cakes” for us to eat, in our wet bathing suits in the air conditioning — “cakes” which consisted of the inner parts of whitebread slices balled up in our hands, which we drank with…something. maybe tea, but probably not. iced tea maybe. the swirls in the “tea cakes” (bread-balls) that looked kinda like cinnamon were actually dirty-hand dirt.
i had thought exclusively positive things about all of this — it was fun! — until one of the mothers asked us what “tea cakes” were, and then what the swirls were. she also asked me what i was writing, and when i replied that i was writing a book, she seemed skeptical! it hadnt occurred to me to be embarrassed about literally every single thing i was doing there at that table, eating dirty hand-balled whitebread, typing words that would never be a book ever, because there is no possible way. then, im sure i went swimming. in a dirty lake. with fish. in case anyone was wondering.
anyway, what was i saying? oh, symbolism. i dont do it. what i do is write things, for people to read, and then i converse with them about it. generally speaking, i speak literally (not metaphorically) and i invoke feeling, as well as convey information. in every post i write, i include an insight, because otherwise i bore myself to death and see very little point. these insights come from different places and i dont take credit for most of them — i just work here. i show up to work here. luckily, i am frequently inspired.
as a part of this writing-thing, i sustain direct and indirect hits, because for whatever reason, people are actually reading what i am saying. they are paying attention to it and responding to it in various ways. i *dont* like attention, but i do like writing things, for people to read, and then discussing it with them. so i keep doing it. sometimes i think about ending it so that i dont have to deal with the shitty parts of it anymore, and the shitty part is really fucking shitty. like, i feel like i am eating some amount of shit every fucking day, or most days. it feels toxic and alienating.
what i started doing when i feel toxic and alienated — because when i get like this i feel like i have nothing else to read, even though thats not exactly true, but thats how it feels when there is so (relatively) little radical work out there and i just want to feel inspired again, and i am feeling quite alone and frustrated by this point, and the thought of picking up a 30-year old book isnt doing it for me, and i dont want to have to search for anything, wahhhh, poor me — i read my own archives. okay? i do. i read the posts and i read the comments — seriously, i highly highly recommend the comments. it takes about an hour to read 2 or 3 posts and the conversations that follow, and every time i do this, i think — this is some of the best if not THE BEST writing on the internet. or something. you literally cannot get this anywhere else. okay? i think this about the posts, and i think this about the comments. its not the writing as much as the ideas of course, but damn those are some nice words, strung together in a coherent way, intended to make sense to other people. which is different than being a “good writer” not incidentally. get it?
and i used to do this with the HUB too. every time we were under attack or experiencing some crisis or sustaining repeated blows, from within and without, sometimes at the same time, i would pry one hand out of my hair and go a-browsing. in its early days, i would browse HUB’s front page — it went on forever, and had so much fresh content, it was glorious — and i would think “this is really good work. i am really happy about this. excellent.” or something. and you know what else i would think about? as much as i hate to admit it to all you amazing women who might be able to go entire minutes without an old white man popping into your head, i (would and do) think about dave thomas, the creator of the wendy’s hamburger franchise.
okay? i think about dave freaking thomas and his freaking fast-food restaurants. because i once saw a biography about him, and he spake into the camera thusly:
every time i feel down, and like this cant possibly succeed (he was competing with the biggies mcdonalds and burger king, dont forget) i go into one of my restaurants, and i have a burger and a frosty and i think “this is really good food.” and that makes me feel better, and i start to believe this might actually work.
thats a paraphrase, and its rather like “if i build it, they will come” — but with pickles and onions. get it? if i build it, they will come. another dumb 80s reference that has stuck with me all this time, for some reason. the young ‘uns can google it.
so look. deep down, im just a hick who remembers stuff, and i find inspiration where i find it. i involuntarily recall this interview of dave thomas i accidentally saw once, when im feeling down about radical feminist blogging, or when the biggies are about to crush me. because the biggies are about to crush me, always, and therefore, i sustain blow after blow, from within and without, i end up thinking about hamburgers a lot. not all the time, but more than i normally would, for sure. i am thinking about them right now. and now you are too. 
so, is there an actual point to be located anywhere in this post? yes. did it come through? you tell me. i feel like hammered shit right now, and im thinking about crusty, greasy hamburgers i cant even eat. because of food allergies, mind you. my appetite is completely fine.
The Manketplace of Broideas! February 18, 2013
Posted by FCM in international, liberal dickwads, MRAs, politics, porn, prostitution, radical concepts, self-identified feminist men.Tags: conference, london, radfem 2013
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i think we have all seen recently (and forever) that mens alleged “marketplace of ideas” really isnt. men wax idiotic about their beloved “marketplace” which is interesting terminology in itself — if there is no “market” for it, it has no place. and obviously they mean this literally — if men cant make money (or some other benefit) from it, its worthless. they like to think this isnt true, and cite as evidence their made-up assertion that but but but their marketplace includes anti-capitalist dood-volutionary type material too!
in reality, mens “marketplace” includes allegedly subversive material, as long as its porny enough, and exploits women. hello. orwell himself once marveled about his own career as a writer that he had “somehow” convinced capitalism (or like, the establishment, or something) for a short time to pay him for work that was directly oppositional to its own interests. a close reading of “1984″ of course reveals that, whatever else it mightve been, orwells doodvolutionary work was also valuable PIV-positive, woman-hating propaganda. mystery solved.
we have seen rampant censorship of womens ideas recently — funny that, since women have only recently been granted a voice in public, and been allowed to read and write for that matter. the lucky ones of us anyway. and despite a global policy and practice of silencing women, often via rape and threats of rape, we see men waxing asshole about “free speech” and how it doesnt count as censorship if its hate speech! or, its not really silencing unless the government does it. it doesnt count, when its done to us, by men, because this that and the other. but specifically women dont need the government to silence us if we are shut down immediately by your average, male-privileged joe via domestic terrorism, including terroristic rape and death threats and men stalking us and promising to harm our children. or if we manage to speak for a couple of months anyway, and later, when a major blogging platform shuts us down for alleged TOS violations (while leaving up all manners of woman hatred, including porn AND RAPE AND DEATH THREATS).
this isnt technically censorship they say, quite ironically, since they are saying it with the deliberate intention of shutting us down and preventing us from developing a theory about whats really going on — we are specifically prevented from conceding ok, this is not technically censorship AND YET we are being effectively silenced anyway, and then speculating on why and how that is.
so the average joe shuts us down, because it *is* in fact (largely) the average joe that oppresses women globally, every day, because patriarchy. they do this with their dicks, and with the express and implied threat of using their dicks against us. and, you know, their vicious murderous violence and threats of violence. it works. and they go right on believing (or pretending to believe) that their “marketplace of ideas” really includes a diversity of human thought, or that it should, and even that it could. their idiotic assertions are laughable, making one question the veracity of certain “common knowledge” regarding what men really fear — legend has it, men fear women laughing at them more than they fear anything else in the world. but they dont bother hiding their ludicrous hypocrisy, which tends to invoke a hiccup and half-concealed snort at least. so while i believe that men hate (not fear) women laughing at them, their solution is to silence womens laughter. notably, they dont try to not be funny. SILENCE.
with this in mind, i would like to acknowledge that the program and registration materials for radfem 2013 have been posted. here, there and elsewhere, women are bringing *our* ideas to the marketplace. men arent proving to like it, but mens response certainly does not detract from or negate the value of those ideas, or speak (in any direct way) to the value of our ideas to and for women, as a sexual class, around the world. in reality, radical feminism is the only idea and the only policy and practice that has any value at all. its the only honest, rigorous discourse on the planet at this time, because its the only one that centers or even acknowledges the lives and the reality of 3.5 billion oppressed people globally — women.
for thinking, intellectually honest women, for women who acknowledge our own humanity and who want to be fully free, radical feminism — including female separatism, and organizing and gathering in female-only space — is all there is. because women are a sex class, the rapeable class, sexual politics is the only political platform that holds any promise to free us, including liberating our female bodies and our minds from male dominance, and that is why we continue to do it. historically, it seems that human beings want to be, and activate towards being free, and if it surprises (or enrages) men that we persevere in the face of their threatened and actualized violence, its only because they do not think we are human at all — but they are wrong about that. in reality, everything men do and everything men think is wrong.
Moron Issue Framing. Or, Why Male Violence Against Women and Children Survives a Cost-Benefit Analysis December 19, 2012
Posted by FCM in logic, politics, self-identified feminist men.Tags: connecticut, gun control, male violence, sandy hook elementary school
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the responses to recent calls for banning firearms in the wake of the sandy hook elementary school annihilation are stupefying. heres one now, from some allegedly pro-feminist dood equating male violence against other men with male violence against women and children. stupefying! or the even more stupefying “what about the pens!” argument: men will use any object as a weapon, (link within to a “school massacre” where the man used a hammer against children — and all the children survived their injuries, get it?) therefore we are obligated to make mens job of annihilating large numbers of women and children easier by giving them access to guns. what?
now, obviously, gun control is a harm-reduction strategy only. lets be clear about that: women generally are not so stupid as to ever believe that we can eliminate the problem of violent men, and reducing or eliminating mens access to guns will not cure or even reduce the problem of violent men. we have been in mens crosshairs since before there was such a thing as crosshairs mkay? we know guns arent really the problem, but to suggest a real solution (eliminating or reducing the number of men, or female separatism) garners us rape and death threats and worse. some of us do it anyway, because the problem of male violence against women is so ghastly and so penetrating and so real that it makes very little difference whether the threats against us are made more-overt. they are overt already.
and i am about as disinterested in harm-reduction strategies as anyone could possibly reasonably be: which means that i am very interested in them, and i do think about them, but i dont like to waste my time writing or talking about them. other people can and do perform that function better than i ever could, and i am happy to let them — i invest my time and talent elsewhere, because thats what *i* do best. mkay? but look. even *i* cannot stand by whilst people make the same idiotic remarks on this issue, making false equivalences, stinking the place up with equality-rhetoric and worse. this is maddening. maddening! so allow me to try to help, if i may.
the problem, i think, is that in mainstream and even “feminist” discussions of male violence, there are several issues being discussed as if they are one issue, or different issues being discussed as if they are the same. when they arent the same at all. firstly, male violence against women is a different animal than male violence against other men. mkay? because women do not equal men and men do not equal women. women are the oppressed class, men are the oppressors. women are impregnated while men impregnate. get it? different, not the same. we have to assume meaningful sex-based difference, i think, and work from there, lest we fall into obfuscating and male-centric equality-rhetoric accidentally. if there are no meaningful sex-based differences implicated, thats one thing, but there frequently are.
secondly, from womens perspective, male violence against other men is bad too, but our reasons for thinking so are not mens reasons, or they cannot be assumed to be the same or even similar. okay? because women are not men and men arent women. clearly, if the issue of male violence against either women or men was the same issue for us as it is for them, women and feminists would probably care about it as much as men seem to care about solving the problem of male violence, including the problem of male violence against other men, which is to say we wouldnt care about it much at all. except to use it to derail, obfuscate and negate womens calls to reduce or eliminate male violence against women perhaps, like old tremblay did there with his “what about the pens?” its pretty useful for that.
to wit, i think we need to realize and accept that everything man-made that currently exists, exists because it has been found by men to survive a cost-benefit analysis. male violence against other men survives a cost-benefit analysis, and male violence against women survives a cost benefit analysis. to men. if it didnt, they would stop doing it. can we agree on that much at least? if not, please detail any reasonable disagreements below. i dont think there are any.
and when analyzing both sides of the equation of male violence against both women and men — the cost-side and the benefits-side — things like hierarchies, and power, and misogyny, and sadism, or the political usefulness of paralyzing fear might be too abstract to plug into a mathematical equation. for the purposes of understanding the cost-benefit analysis men are obviously applying toward male violence, i keep coming back to the issue of “gynergy” which isnt abstract at all — where women consistently put their time, resources and literally our life-energies into the survival and growth of ourselves and our children, this can be measured. when men kill *anyone* they are killing womens gynergy, and each child and indeed every adult is the embodiment of a real womans gynergy: a 6 year old child represents 6 years (and 9 months) of its mothers time, resources and her very self. a 50-year old, for that matter, represents 18 years (ok who are we kidding — the full 50…plus 9 months) of its mothers — and other womens! — gynergy. when a man kills someone, to the killer and to all men, the victim may be no more valuable within mens value system than any other 200- (or 50-) pound meatbag, (whats even the most expensive meat worth? not much) but that is not the value of a human life to women, as a sexual class, around the world, now is it?
and thats just the beginning of the discussion, i think. and the conclusions we will be forced to draw, when we analyze mens value system and compare it to ours, including the reasons for obvious difference will likely be devastating. but we have to do it dont we? at the very least we should probably shut the hell up if we cant make a decent observation about male violence so we dont confuse everyone. but that is kind of the point of doing it, when you are a man. right, tremblay?
male violence against women, and male violence against men, consistently survives a cost-benefit analysis to men and male supremacy — if it didnt, men would stop doing it. its time we look at the equation they are using, to figure out how they keep getting the result they are getting. and why we get a different result when we do the math. and if it seems cold and calculated to think of it in these terms, blame men mkay? if they werent all the time killing people, and obviously finding a net-gain to themselves in doing so, we wouldnt have to examine why that is, and whats in it for them, or to examine anyones values or the nature of our investments so closely. but they are, so we do. that is all.
