just wanted to let everyone know that the HUB has been reopened as an archives. please note the new address: radicalhubarchives.wordpress.com.
also, the original wordpress address, which was radicalhub.wordpress.com still works, and all links to HUB content which include the original wordpress.com address, that is, links dropped PRIOR TO january, 2012 — when the domain was purchased — will still take you to the content. all links to HUB after january, 2012 which contain the now-defunct radicalhub.com address, will take you to the .com address, which is no longer under radfem control.
among other things, prior to the archives being made available, 3500+ tainted links within the HUB itself, that is, links in the HUB linking to the HUB had to be changed/updated to avoid taking people into (possibly) enemy territory via clicking through to the .com. get it? i am currently undertaking this link updating endeavor on my own blogs, and i would ask other bloggers to update their links and blogrolls as well.*
i would like to thank everyone who helped get the HUB archives back online, and to everyone who read, commented and contributed to the HUB project while it was still publishing. and i would invite everyone to revisit the archives, especially the early days because back then, HUB was glorious. it really was. it was something i will never forget. 🙂
* to the asshole who made the updating of literally thousands of links (among other things!) necessary, and caused thousands more dead links to be left across the internet on literally thousands of other blogs, posts, comments and platforms, linking to now nonexistent content, links which cannot or will not be updated: THANKS ASSHOLE. thanks especially for depriving people reading mainstream and fun-fem blogs of the chance — perhaps their only chance — to be exposed to radical content. because thats what was lost when the HUB went down.
ive been doing this awhile now, and i can report that i have been a target from day one or thereabouts, when the fun fems and sex-pozzers first tried to silence me. this was even before i received my first rape or death threat — it was the women that nearly did me in! granted, half these “women” were probably men, but not all of them.
in the beginning — notably, before i had even found my voice or gone anywhere near the ends of my thoughts — in order to amass currency and credibility, i was invited to “check my privilege” to the point of nearly (even clearly) identifying myself publicly. (i declined that invitation.) in the same vein, accusations were lobbed at me of various “privileges” (and continue to this day) inviting me to reveal details of my life as a “rebuttal” lest i encounter negative outcomes (like losing currency and credibility, due to all the privilege). or to, you know, ignore it.
this is no accident BTW. this “privilege checking” business mirrors doxing and outing exactly. the outcome at least is identical, where the result is to make radical feminist bloggers more vulnerable to violent men in real life, in order to silence us, or cause us to self-censor out of fear. this outcome — womens identities and personal information being revealed in order to silence radical women or original, female-centered thought — is what men want, and this is what men get. handed to them on a silver fucking platter. by us, via “privilege checking.”
luckily, even way back then, although this was my first blog, it was not my first rodeo — i continued. at some point my focus changed, and i came to realize that what i was doing was qualitatively (and quantitatively) different than what anyone else was doing at this time and place (online, now). very recently, and very painfully, and painstakingly, and like REALLY SLOWLY, as if i had some kind of mental block against realizing this particular truth as a matter of fact, i realized that reformist-oriented radical feminists have taken over the movement, and are trying very hard to silence dissent. here is what i mean by that.
i mean that there are radical feminists who are without a doubt radical — they recognize the importance of getting to the root of womens oppression by men. that is not a small thing. in order to fulfill that most basic requirement, one must first believe in women and men — in todays pomo, queerified environs, almost everyone who identifies as “feminist” fails. reformist-oriented radical feminists believe in women and men as sexual classes, and they want to get at the root, and notably, they have chosen to utilize legal and social reform as a tool to dismantle what they consider the root, which is usually identified as dom/sub. the ugly part of this is not that they are utilizing a specific strategy towards ending male dominance — to each her own. the ugly part, as it always is, is the disingenuous part, the silencing part.
to wit, and these are but 2 examples, men and trannies have been really pissed off about mary daly and her very existence for a long time — they see her as an “evil” woman (HA!) and resent her audacity in every way. they have identified her “sexism” against men and her female-centered vision as offensive to themselves and thus they want activate towards complete erasure of daly and her genius and her exceedingly excellent work and legacy from the face of the earth. indeed, if mary daly were alive today, her work likely wouldnt even be published, and her physical safety would be in serious danger because of the escalating threats and violence of men against women and the attempted and successful silencing of specifically radical feminist ideology.
so within this political and material context, where men vehemently wish activate towards mary daly and her work being wiped from the face of the earth, what does one (relatively) well-known reformist-oriented radical feminist do, in a public letter to the UN (subject: trannie politicking) but throw “essentialists” like mary daly and all feminists who think like mary daly under the bus — we are erased from feminism. mary daly! not a feminist! because she noted that men are unlikely to be changed, and that its likely biological. thats rich. no, the real feminists are the social determinists, like gloria steinem — and steinem herself seems especially quotable when she herself is quoting a man. srsly, read the UN letter if you havent already. now thats good erasure i mean reformist politicking.
next, and of personal and political significance to myself (and others) men and trannies set their sights on the radfem HUB early on. they wanted it GONE. erased. they activated towards that end mercilessly; notably, they failed. and yet, be that as it may…has anyone seen the HUB lately? gee, where did it go, who was involved, and what lead up to it — even more to the point, what has been so distracting, stressful and time consuming of late (erasure complete) for 2 of the most prolific radfem bloggers out there, 2 radfem bloggers who are decidedly against reformist politicking and have been calling shit on both reformism and the tendency of reformist feminists to hold out hope for men against all evidence — and why oh why arent they (they, specifically) writing anything?
and rounding out the picture nicely, including who wants/activates towards what ends for the HUB, and why, is this: “liberation collective” has just today republished a series originally published on the HUB — but “lib coll” doesnt mention the HUB at all, or mention that this is not the first time this series has been published, or where. its as if HUB never existed, but of course erasing the HUB is the entire reason lib coll exists — it was created a year after HUB was, and hosted exclusively republished/recycled content from the HUB but without acknowledging the HUB at all, or the fact that the posts were *not* first published at lib coll, but in fact were created previously and exclusively for/within a specific context, and were first published “somewhere else.” and what that “context” was and where that “somewhere else” might be was and is specifically omitted. get it? all of that has been erased. a very fine point has been added now that the HUB itself has been destroyed. from the inside.
now, anyone can investigate the connections here if they want to: are the organizers of lib coll and the organizers of radfem 2013 the same people? was the owner and dispositor of the HUB domain involved in any way in either lib coll or radfem 2013? if so, was it in a “public relations” capacity? im just asking.
and for those who plan to go, i hope you will report back as to whether the entire point (intent and effect) of radfem 2013 was to advance the agenda and numbers of reformist-oriented radical feminists, while simultaneously erasing and negating the fact that there is any other kind. and that we were very vocal, once.
this is what “erasure” looks like, on the ground, in real time. in case anyone has ever wondered. it looks like reformist activating, or at the very least, reformists and reformist activating routinely and demonstrably produce a very specific result — to erase radical feminism and radical feminists, including our radical feminist history and our work. do they not? we are absolutely swimming in the erasure of radical herstory right here, right now. remember this.
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.
ok everyone…as of right now, the radfem HUB collective blog is open for business! we have 15 committed bloggers, dozens of links and resources (check out the pages!) and a beautiful front page full of brand new radical content. click the pic above to visit the HUB!*
as always, comments welcome. FAAB only, please. thank you!
femonade 