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Thanks, Dickwads April 30, 2012

Posted by FCM in authors picks, books!, entertainment, liberal dickwads, news you can use, pop culture.
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mary daly reported that she often used phallocentric ideas and works as a springboard for her own work.  no reason to reinvent the wheel afterall, and phallocentric works are literally everywhere.  it would be difficult to even have a springboard in fact if you werent going to use men’s work for this purpose, seeing as how women were only allowed to learn to read and write very recently (and in many places, still arent).

so, to that end, i present these videos.  left on youtube as anthropologic evidence of male supremacy and rape-culture, but now also being used to illustrate the following radical feminist points:

1.  radfem writing and blogging is important.  not just “womens” writing and not just “feminist” writing but radical feminist writing specifically is important, and will be useful in challenging male supremacy, assuming that what works for men will work for us too.  granted, its a pretty big assumption and may be incorrect.  either way, it says something interesting about our plight; and either way, it supports us in doing it, in case any of us were wondering whether there is any reason to believe, any reason at all, that radical feminist blogging might help.

why?  because explicit language is known to create mutual knowledge, and mutual knowledge creates collective power to challenge dominance, and this dynamic is known and documented.  and radical feminists use explicit language.  radical feminists specifically do not pull our punches, and we do not use euphemisms to talk about what we mean.  we do not call intercourse “sex” for example, and we do not call male violence against women “violence” or “crime” or mutual combat or domestic discord or heated arguments.  we are the only ones who do this.  and while it is important that all women, any women are allowed to add theirs to the “marketplace of ideas” what radical feminists in particular are doing holds promise for creating collective power and challenging dominance (under patriarchy, this means collective female power to challenge male supremacy).  because of our explicit language.  according to dickwad video #1, anyway!

BTW the good stuff starts at 7:48.  everything up to there is egregious rape-apologism and blaming women for rape, when men lie to us with the specific intent to isolate us and commit rape.  i told you he was a dickwad.

2.  women-only spaces are important and necessary to challenging male supremacy.  according to the second video, “good ideas” come from hunches colliding with other hunches, and this occurs when people interact with other people and their ideas play off each other.  this does not happen in isolation as frequently or efficiently as it does in shared spaces where people talk freely about their ideas and share knowledge.  and again, women who are having “hunches” and ideas of the radfem kind are going to help each other incubate and birth “good ideas” of the radfem kind.  this dynamic has particular significance to radical women, and radical spaces.

and i guess there is a third point being illustrated here.

3.  misogynists and male-supremacists will be particularly motivated to wipe radical feminist writing and radical spaces from the face of the earth.  the import of explicit language and idea-sharing is common knowledge among men, and this knowledge is passed among men through various media like youtube.  they know these dynamics exist and their potential for challenging dominance and generating good and even revolutionary ideas.  the fact that they are trying specifically to destroy radical feminist writing logically follows, and their acts in furtherance of that are not unconsidered or random.

even if radical feminist writing and spaces wont work for us because the rules are different for us, misogynist men are showing us, by attacking us, that they see what we are doing and *they* have every reason in the world to believe that it might actually work.  we are doing what they have always done, and their expectation (and fear) is that its going to work for us like its worked for them.

they might be wrong about that of course, as they constantly deny that the rules are different for us than they are for themselves, because patriarchy.  but as is frequently the case, their response tells us quite a bit about them, and whats motivating them.  for example, that their response is to attempt to destroy us tells us that they are, in fact, the dominant class, and they are demonstrating that they know it: assuming that these dynamics exist, and they know these dynamics exist — and according to them, they do — only a dominant class which was cognizant of its own dominance would have reason to behave as they are behaving.  their denial that patriarchy exists, that they benefit from it and any plausible deniability that they know about all of it — ie. its deliberate — are thoroughly debunked.

thanks to these videos and the dickwads who aired them in public, we now have some information and context that we can consider, and decide to do something with it or not.  of course, in the case of the first video, we had to sit through 7:47 of rape-culture to get there.  interesting, that.  its almost exactly as if we were supposed to dissociate due to the rape-references and stop listening before he said anything that might be helpful to us.

clever.

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Comments

1. Feuerwerferin - May 1, 2012

That was very interessting again, thank you so much! It really is an important: how many women know and how much do they know? How can we get all women to know and to know that other women know? (serious questions)

FCM - May 1, 2012

how indeed. do you have any suggestions? 🙂 blogging has always seemed to me like the right thing to do, and now that i see how mutual knowledge works, i feel somewhat vindicated. of course, i knew i was on the right track from the viciousness of the attacks as well. they arent very good at keeping secrets are they? being completely privileged their entire lives in every way, they apparently have failed to consider certain things important. its probably a good idea for us to pay attention when they give the game away. i mean really. it couldnt be more obvious.

2. Feuerwerferin - May 2, 2012

Unfortunately, the internet can’t provide us with the knowledge that our neighbours know about it, too (provided that they really do know). But how will we get women in large numbers to join radical feminist events? Are there even places that big?
The funfems initiated a campaign of “outing” as a fun feminist on March 8th and “this is what a feminist looks like”-videos (that you debuncted rightfully). But we can’t do that, can we? Such a campaign still does not help though because the women are still displayed as individuals and don’t know who else knows about the systemic oppression (or gender inequality as the fun fems might say). Or does it move their cause forward?

FCM - May 3, 2012

well our internet “neighbors” can tell us what they know when they comment. interestingly, there are many males and MRAs trolling the comments right now, and you can tell they are men by the knowledge (or more to the point, the lack of it) which they display in their idiotic diatribes. you can always, always tell. there is no such thing as “mutual knowledge” where men are concerned, when the topic is radical feminism. it DOES NOT COMPUTE. they dont get it. currently, a half dozen are typing directly into my spam folder. and they are all pretending to be female.

3. mechantechatonne - May 5, 2012

I got a darling man trolling my site. And I was so glad to have gone so long dude troll free, too.

There is definitely no mutual knowledge with men when it comes to radical feminism. Mainly because whatever you say, they either don’t believe you or don’t care. You say “rape” they hear “surprise sex you ought to be grateful for.” You say “PIV victimizes women” they hear “you don’t have enough PIV, otherwise you would appreciate it properly and know that it’s what’s good for us.” You say “respect me” they hear “you want to know how much I’d like to PIV you, because I like hearing women talk about how much they want to please me, and PIV pleases me.”

“Mutual knowledge” is certainly something men have among themselves, but it is something women are given hell to ensure we don’t get to have among ourselves. Our mutual knowledge is supposed to be their mutual knowledge as far as they are concerned, because a “woman” to a man is just a castrated man that’s better at dishes; there’s no such thing to them as anything other than men, so no reason for our reality and understanding to vary from theirs, especially as long as it benefits them so strongly for us to think like them.

This calls to mind what Mary Daly referred to as the ultimate taboo for women, to touch other women. She speaks of how lesbianism that is only about sex doesn’t violate this taboo, but touching other women psychically and emotionally does. Spinning with other women and realizing our connectedness as women does. A corollary to that is that post-modern feminism, with its focus on the divisions among women and prioritization of self-flagellating constantly over horizontal violence above actually focusing on dismantling the patriarchy would not, and does not violate this taboo. Daring to be woman-centered and say it explicitly and without language that can be misunderstood is a crucial radical act, and it’s useful to have a clear explanation of why. My usual response to “why can’t you just say (euphemism)” had been “because I don’t MEAN (euphemism.) That’s why I didn’t say it.” Now I can voice why intuitively felt so important to me not to euphemize.

4. witchwind - May 6, 2012

for example, that their response is to attempt to destroy us tells us that they are, in fact, the dominant class, and they are demonstrating that they know it: assuming that these dynamics exist, and they know these dynamics exist — and according to them, they do — only a dominant class which was cognizant of its own dominance would have reason to behave as they are behaving.

Thanks for this. This needs to be reminded every single second. I have such a hard time explaining to women that men’s harm is intentional and they know what they’re doing, but so many just won’t believe it because intentionality of harm is one of the hardest thing to make sense of, for most victims it is incomprehensible, insane, and this stunning effect is what makes intentional human violence so destructive.

If we know that sharing radfem knowledge could challenge male dominance, then the next question is what do we do, given the current situation of constantly being targetted by men who want to wipe radfem knowledge from the face of the earth. What is the most efficient way of sharing this knowledge and making sure this knowledge is shared in safe spaces, and that while the knowledge is shared, freedom to go the ends of our thoughts is possible? (Which means being free, at least temporarily, from being colonised by a male). How then do we best help women to decolonise from male terrorism and violence so they can free their consciousness enough to be able to hear radfeminism and go to the end of their thoughts?

What could work for us that wouldn’t work for men? Or could work for us that men coudn’t destroy?

I noticed for one that in many occasions it isn’t enough to tell the truth to some women according to the extent by which they’re controlled by men. In this case you first have to put her out of danger from the male terrorist who’s controlling her because the risk is that she’ll respond the way her terrorist will have told her to respond, that is, wipe anything away that threatens his power over her. What’s the best and quickest way to avoid male violence then, so we’re capable of thinking? Oh well, lots of questions, sorry if this isn’t helpful.

5. witchwind - May 7, 2012

Ah also, Nicole Claude Mathieu, in her article “quand céder n’est pas consentir” (when giving in is not consenting) she explains that all men may not be aware of all the ins and outs of their power, but they only need to know the prerogatives they have, the user manual of how to dominate, the way it works and what they need to do to get what they want. So men are generally aware of being part of the dominant class and are aware of what they should do to maintain their power, even if they don’t understand the whole structure of the system.

6. roaringinside - May 7, 2012

It’s completely intentional. I now realize that in order to survive in the patriarchy I had developed a mental mechanism of making excuses for misogyny and I thought that misogynist men were ”brainwashed/alienated” (which I guess means I started my feminist journey as an equality feminist), but I soon got tired of underestimating men’s intellectual capacities just to think of them as ”victims” of the culture. What the hell? They’re aware, and yes, knowing that hurts like hell and makes and unable to trust men forever, but at least it liberates you because you’re not prey of manipulation and lies anymore, and keeps you alive, whereas pretending to be happy as a slave while ignoring the lies zombifies you and makes it possible for the divine play of necrophilia to come to terms. I started deprogramming when I realized I was making excuses for very intelligent males who were worried about animal rights and the environment and believed to be ”fighting the system” but dehumanized and vampirized women just like any other misogynist predator. Then I realized misogyny is the root of everything that’s fucked up on this bloody planet.

I love the idea of mutual knowledge but in my experience, the problem is male-identification; too many women are invested in it. The key solution for me is to be female-identified, that’s no.1 priority in deprogramming and becoming a feminist, but it’s also the hardest thing for patriarchal women to do, because the female perspective is so radically different than the male (which we have been taught to identify as ours). It’s just a theoretical question -don’t know if it would work in practice-, but could the spreading of women’s culture make women more female-identified? And through which channels could we really spread it until people are bombarded with it? Internet’s big one because it’s the only free media, which is great. One thing I know for sure is that if I ever have children, I will teach them to be female-identified from day one, as this is something I know has played an important part in making me open to radfeminism in my upbringing – I wasn’t male-identified enough to not call out the absurdities of patriarchal ideology, and I had too much anti-patriarchal values internalized already. So I’d say plant seeds, start creating and publishing women’s culture and raise children, who are like sponges, in the female perspective and in anti-patriarchal values and paradigms.

7. cherryblossomlife - May 7, 2012

KNowledge of men’s “intentionality of harm” is what made me realise within a week of starting my new job that my boss was intentionally sabotaging me. It’s insane, it’s madness, it’s senseless, as you say witchwind, and yet there it is, time and time again, right in front of us: men going out of their way to intentionally destroy us.
I had gathered enough evidence on my boss to really get him into trouble, so what did management do? They started trying to paste over the truth with *their* version of reality, assuming that as a patriarchal woman I would naturally accept this new version of events as “truth”. They didn’t realise I’ve had a crash course on all their games by reading these radfem blogs over the past year or so.
I lost my job because I walked out, true, but I my integrity remained intact. Staying at the job would only have been possible if I lost touch with reality and became male-identified.

8. French feminists protest abrogation of anti-sexual harassment law | Radfem News Service - May 8, 2012

[…] eschewing euphemisms and male-centric issue framing that fails to name the agent of harm — is known to create mutual knowledge, which leads to collective power to challenge […]

FCM - May 15, 2012

Now I can voice why intuitively felt so important to me not to euphemize.

excellent. 🙂


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