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.
Moron Mansplaining/Women’s Perspective is Wrong August 19, 2012
Posted by FCM in liberal dickwads, logic, radical concepts, rape, self-identified feminist men, WTF?.Tags: Deep Green Resistance News Service, DGR, feminist current, male violence, mansplaining, Owen Lloyd
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radfem-ological images presents a radfem perspective on mansplaining here. to see a doozy of an example in real life, see this liberal dood’s response to a woman in a laundry cringing at the very sight of him here and here. yes, according to dood, this woman found him cringeworthy because other men had likely harmed her personally, (ie. shes damaged goods) and because other men had made themselves a threat to her and to all women. because patriarchy, you see. because (other) male violence against women. and he holds his hand out to receive his cookie — and receives several! yum! and chew carefully — after offering this very mediocre and not entirely incorrect analysis. the bar is very, very low here, obviously.
but what dood apparently doesnt get and never will, is that this woman, who literally cringed and cowered at the very sight of him, couldve very well been responding reasonably to the threat that he imposed personally, and not just because he has a dick, although certainly thats a good enough reason.
no, this dood, by his own admission, he individually and personally, is emotionally unstable, and prone to becoming enraged. not only that, but he cannot control his emotions at all, has weird emotive fits and outbursts and becomes entirely and involuntarily enraged at the very sight of women, existing. in response to women, existing, this man literally cannot control himself, and his most natural response is rage:
Beyond shame and embarrassment, another feeling rose within me on that laundry day seven years ago. I felt rage. Rage first of all to those whose inhuman actions did such damage to the young woman in the laundromat, and millions of other women every year. I felt enraged also that beyond destroying women, these men are destroying the possibility for men and women to co-exist peacefully. Finally I was enraged about men’s lack of response to this violence against women and against peaceful human relations.
rage. in response to a woman, existing. but allegedly the rage is in response to men’s inability to be peaceful. as if his mansplanation, even if true, makes any damn rational sense at all, or is consistent at all with women continuing to hold out hope for men, and to live voluntarily with men.
in reality, she mightve smelled that on you, dood. its kind of a thing we do. because youre out of control, emotionally unstable, and prone to becoming enraged; and in response to women, existing (among other things! many, many, many things! all the things?).
is there anybody out there? hello?
Moron Surveillance May 26, 2012
Posted by FCM in books!, liberal dickwads, MRAs, radical concepts, rape, self-identified feminist men, trans.Tags: MRAs, orwell, Radfem 2012, radfem conference, Radfem Reboot, surveillance, trans, vancouver rape relief, women only space
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reading (or re-reading) orwell as a radical feminist was eye-opening. everyone has read orwell, or everyone who considers themselves to be good progressives or educated persons has read it, so its an easy shorthand we can all use when speaking about certain concepts. like surveillance, and the political significance — the political intent and effect — of surveillance when employed by the oppressors against the oppressed class.
as orwell spelled out plainly, and as was his observation about oppressive totalitarian regimes that did this in real life, the point of the oppressor class surveilling its charges is to guard against thoughtcrime — made-up “crimes” against the oppressor class that begin and end at the level of thought. its not what we are planning to do, and not what we are doing, but what we are thinking thats at issue, and its our negative thoughts about our oppressors, or positive thoughts about ourselves and our own capacities and desire to revolt against oppressive controls that are the crime. we have seen this repeatedly, where men surveil women, allegedly to bring our thoughts and what is in our hearts and minds into the “light of day” aka. (and to use orwells frame) for scrutinization and reprogramming by the oppressor class, in this case, by men and patriarchal women.
our thoughts. not our plans, or our actions. thats important. as is the intent of reprogramming.
even fun feminists understand that men are the oppressor class, (hence the need for any kind of feminism, even their kind, see how that works? or are all feminists, even the blandest kind, merely a solution looking for a problem, like the MRAs claim? this is a serious question) so they too should be very wary about men invading womens spaces, because of the potential — and i would go further and say the demonstrated intent and effect — of patriarchal surveillance.
so, to apply this “theory” to our reality, and let me remind everyone that we all pretty much accept the idea of oppressive surveillance used by totalitarian political regimes — they are known to do this — i propose the following: just in case transwomen are just men in dresses — just in case! — i think we should not close the door to organizing and meeting without transwomen in the room. because of the potential for patriarchal surveillance.
as another example of a scenario that is rife with the potential — i would say demonstrated intent and effect, but lets stick with “potential” for now — for patriarchal surveillance, consider these chilling words from a male social worker, and how he sees his role as a therapist for female rape survivors. this was in the context of a discussion of the need for female-only space, specifically rape crisis shelters, and in the context of the Rape Relief vs Nixon case, specifically whether transwomen should be allowed to therapize raped women in a women’s shelter: (bolds mine)
Andrew Pari, LCSWMay 16, 2012Maybe I’m stating the obvious and not to derail a great conversation, but there are many male psychotherapists and supportive counselors who practice in the area of sexual assault/rape. A large part of my practice is in working with children with a history of sexual abuse/molestation, in addition to young women who have been raped as well.
This doesn’t take away from what all of you are saying about rape crisis centers which I agree need to be staffed predominately by women to create the atmosphere of comfort/safety needed for girls/women to initially talk about what happened. I was just picking up, probably falsely, on the idea that it is inherently harmful for men to be involved in the healing process at all. I’ve had many girls/women transferred to me specifically because of my background and where my “maleness” was able to promote healing as it gave an appropriate outlet for the person’s trauma and anger that needed to be expressed and could be in the safety of therapy. In the field of mental health, it’s become more known as another way to help survivors heal.
If this is already common knowledge here, then forgive the assumption.
and heres another cold slice of shit pie from andrew, male therapist to raped women, in the context of a discussion of the need for female-only space, and whether women have the right to exclude transwomen from therapizing raped women in a women’s shelter:
Andrew Pari, LCSWMay 17, 2012I agree with everything you said. Especially about the recognition of the inherent power imbalance as a therapist, on top of which is the often unnamed, but obvious, societal imbalance between men and women in the therapeutic context. This is why I am a huge believer in naming these things early on in treatment. Overtly and clearly stating the obvious differences and what they might mean, even when (and sometimes because) the client may be reluctant to do so themselves. I don’t pretend to be expert at this and I find myself going back sometimes to bring this into the room if I failed to earlier.
Much of my experience with these kind of referrals has been from female colleagues who have either helped the client to a particular point and want them (or rather the client articulates being ready to) work through anger towards the perpetrator or the projection onto men in general, or they need the experience of an intimate non-abusive connection with a man. The latter can be difficult as there is often a kind of “rebound effect” where the client experiences feelings of infatuation or seeing me as “the only good one.”
Actually, there is a third type; when the abuse was female perpetrated. Then I’m dealing with a whole other set of nuances in unpacking what happened on the individual level while still being mindful of the male-female dynamic in the room.
I really liked what you wrote about that, as a male, I have a vested interest in not seeing or not working with the socialized oppression of women. It’s an area I do my best to challenge myself on and it is an important reminder that I can not lose sight of this or risk unintentionally harming or, at best, not helping my clients to move forward.
One piece you wrote that I will challenge somewhat is the idea of inability to identify with a female client who was experienced female-specific harms. This may be an aspect of my own denial/arrogance, but I carry that idea into every therapeutic relationship. I cannot ever truly know the experience of who is sitting in front of me until they share it, and they will not share it if they see me as someone who “already knows it.” I actually talk about this in training regarding those clients who seem more like us than different from us. I can expand on this, if you want.
And thanks for stumbling across the show! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the “you’re on the air with WHO?” conversation. I’ve had several guests refuse to come on before getting to know me as they took me for a conservative “Dr. Laura” style show. I will share with some glee that one of my favorite moments was realizing I was really really talking to Jaclyn Friedman on the show. Also Meghan…maybe you’ve heard of her, but I don’t want to name drop…
this is telling, isnt it? again, here is the context: a discussion, on a feminist blog, of the need for women-only space, specifically, whether male-to-female transgendered individuals should be allowed to therapize raped women in a women’s shelter.
it is within that context specifically that andrew pari, a “cis” male, feels the beginnings of an itch, you know the one. the itch that is a manifestation of a desire to move to action — and he does move to action — in this case, to defend the “abilities” (entitlement, right) of men in general to therapize raped women. and to quell any urgency women mightve had around this issue with his sedating mansplanation about (among many, many other things!) his own growth, you see — therapizing raped women gives andrew a chance to challenge himself. because thats important. to andrew.
now why might andrew do this? why might andrew show up to sedate the women and to derail the discussion, and to “represent” males as a sexual class, on this issue in particular, and why did he recognize the opportunity to do that in the context of a discussion about transwomen, not cis-men?
men see whats happening here, you see. they get the itch, and a desire to move to action, because men know that transwomen are men, and men know that to defend trasnwomens interests is to defend their own interests. we should probably listen to them when they tell us such obvious truths about their own intentions and politics, and where their allegiances lie. we will be the ones to properly analyze it of course, and place it within its proper historical and political context, not them, since their interests are in the opposite happening. but listening to them self-reporting on their own itches, and what moves them to action, is probably a good idea. im just saying.
interestingly, andrew acknowledges the possibility that he is arrogant and in denial (euphemisms for being male privileged, a member of the oppressor class, a member of the rapist class) and the risk of “unintentionally harming” or not helping raped women due to his male privilege, and membership in the oppressor and rapist class. and then he says the word but. there should never be a “but” after acknowledging your male privilege, and the risk you and all men pose to women and raped women, andrew.
heres another piece:
Andrew Pari, LCSWMay 17, 2012And for the record, I want to be clear I don’t think I’m some sort of “magic” therapist in this regard. I’ve had clients that I realized I could not help and referred back or re-referred to a female therapist for some of the reasons you mentioned.
It also sounds like, in your case, in addition to Michael not being where you needed him to be, you were ready for a level of feminist-specific reflection that was beyond his ability. While I would love to someday have a client who wanted to have that kind of discussion and self-focus, I would probably refer her to a female feminist therapist for the same reason.
therapizing raped women is at least partly, by his own admission, an exercise in bettering andrew, you see. because bettering andrew is important, and its why raped women exist, and its why women-only rape relief shelters should be erased from the face of the earth. there are numerous and very serious problems with what andrew has said, and he should be taken to task for every bit of it, but lets dig a little bit deeper.
if we were to apply the concept of patriarchal surveillance to the situation of men therapizing raped women, what we see is the potential — or, you know, its demonstrably and obviously happening, in real life — for men to scrutinize and “treat” womens potential and actual thoughtcrime related to men raping women. this is very sneaky indeed. and andrew is telling us very clearly, if we only pay attention, that patriarchal surveillance is in fact not just his “potential” role, but his actual, real role that he plays every day. he disabuses raped women of their notion that men, as a sexual class, rape women, as a sexual class, even though thats true. he disabuses raped women of their anger, even though it is righteous anger. he creates or re-creates (frames) what he defines as a non-abusive situation — in this case, a man, thought-policing a raped woman — and it is he that gets to define that as non-abusive and safe, you see. then, after sufficient exposure to that very calculated environment, when — or rather, if and only if — the women “come around” to wanting to fuck men (again?) and not recognizing men as a sexual class, they have been successfully treated. for thoughtcrime. their thoughts about men are different — thats the only thing thats changed. they have been reprogrammed.
transwomen want to be able to do this to women too, and cis-men sometimes (or you know, always) show up to “represent” when this is discussed. lets connect the dots, people. this is all very disturbing. and i would say without a single moments hesitation or doubt of any kind that this is all very deliberate, and it benefits men at womens expense.
but my point, really, is this, and it should be fairly easy to swallow, for anyone, because i am not taking about absolutes, but merely possibilities. even if its merely a possibility that these situations might be used for patriarchal surveillance, shouldnt feminists support womens right to female only space? you know, just in case?
why is it so important that we never (never, ever, ever) be allowed to organize and gather without men there? at the very least, why cant we do both? and why is there no room for any doubt at all that transwomen are women, and why are we so certain that they arent actually men? there are very few certainties in life, and yet we are willing to say that we are *certain* that male-to-female transgenders are really women? really? im not buying it. the *zero* room for legitimate doubt here, on a subject that is at least worthy of 1% or even .01% uncertainty (if anything ever was!) is pretty convincing proof that this is a scam, and its operating at the level of thought.
we are dealing with thoughtcrime, and patriarchal surveillance, and attempted patriarchal surveillance. this is nothing new. all good academics, politickers and progressives understand what surveilling for thoughtcrime is all about — its a political tool of oppressive totalitarian regimes — and feminists know that there is an oppressor class under patriarchy. lets put two and two together. the whinging about the radfem summer conferences — and over the audacity of radical feminists to attempt to gather without men or transwomen — is just more of the same.
