so radfem13 went off without a hitch. mostly. the event took place and the organizers have issued a postgame statement focusing on the legal issues involved in organizing and meeting as women, in women-only space exclusive of men and trannies. the title of the piece is “protecting female-only space in the UK.” an “interim legal statement” was previously published here. the organizers are quoted extensively in an article on “counterpunch” which you can read here (via gendertrender).
relatedly, melinda tankard reist has been reporting on the saga of young feminist talitha stone taking on a misogynist rapper — i will expound on how this is related below. the latest installment of this series is here.
theres a lot going on here, and its hard to know where to start. so lets start at the beginning, which is probably “what are we doing here in the first place” or the point of radical feminism. and lets be brief about it and come to the analysis quickly. radical feminism is about locating, exposing and understanding the root of womens oppression by men, so that we can be liberated from male dominance. so what is the root? radical feminists understand that the logical endpoint to radical feminist thought is that the root of womens oppression by men is mens sexual and reproductive abuse of women. this is what it means and what it looks like to be oppressed as women by men as men — men dominate and enslave women based on our reproductive biology and mens demonstrated ability and interest in exploiting it.
this means “othering” and pathologizing womens biology by eroticizing intercourse and separating or falsely separating “sex” from reproduction, where there has been no 100% reliable contraceptive invented and there is unlikely to be one ever. and by gaslighting women when we experience reasonable anxiety and aversion to penis-centered “sex” and when we become “unintentionally” knocked up, as if there was any other reasonable outcome to eroticized and normalized PIV considering our female biology and how it works.
it means that men grant themselves the power to open the door to formal, institutional and state control of women by doing the one thing that only men do to only women and which we cannot do to anyone — by impregnating us. note how the big-3 of the patriarchal institutions — medicine, religion and law — all attach to womens bodies and womens lives at the moment of conception, and that this does not happen to men at the moment of conception or ever. its literally a trap, baited and set by men and producing an outcome intended by men that benefits men — control of women, and control of reproduction, including the terms and conditions of intercourse, pregnancy, birth, and childrearing.
this is what our oppression consists of and what it is. men get to name it (sex, fucking, knocked up, mother, father) men get to execute it (intercourse, impregnation) and men get to enforce it (rape, heteronormativity, marriage, and legal remedies and lack thereof for sexual and reproductive offenses). note that i am considering rape to be the violent enforcement by men of womens sex role as fuckholes and breeders.
and there is no legal solution to rape — men rape us, period. then when we are inevitably impregnated, we are caught in their trap and cannot escape — pregnancy triggers the system of overlapping controls on women (via reproduction) including medicalizing/legislating/moralizing abortion; the medical and other standards of care that apply to pregnant, laboring and lactating women; and laws and customs that allow surveillance and control of caretakers, primarily women, and defining parenthood itself so that men are included, tethering women to the men who impregnate them for life. all of this is made-up by men and follows no natural (inevitable) law, and is all by patriarchal design.
now, it is important to note that both rape and legal remedies for sexual and reproductive offenses are used by men to enforce their sexual and reproductive control of women. arent they? thus, womens relationship to the law specifically regarding issues of sex and reproduction — and therefore the terms and conditions of both our oppression and our liberation — is not merely complicated but demonstrably conflicted where men obviously use rape and then not-punishing rape, as well as restrictive (legal) controls on pregnant, birthing and mothering women, in order to dominate and enslave us.
so. regarding radfem13, we have organizers statements indicating that “protecting female-only spaces in the UK” is paramount. whether or not this is the case is a question for the community. so i present the question this way: does protecting female-only spaces in the UK cease or even affect mens sexual and reproductive abuse of women? in order to know whether it does or doesnt, or whether radfem13 was radical at all, we must understand what the organizers themselves intend and mean when they say it. and to figure out what they mean, it helps to read what they have said in their own words about what they were trying to accomplish and why. they tell us what they mean where they say that they wish to evoke the Equality Act to preserve their right to legally assemble sans men; and they explain that the reason they need to do this is because gender, meaning stereotypes which emanate from a persons born-sex but which arent endemic to either sex. and that the artificiality and unfairness of “gender” (meaning sex-based stereotypes) apply to both women and men.
so firstly, we have an appeal for legal reform/protections in one country to meet in women-only space; being generous we can assume they mean that they wish to have mens laws interpreted and applied fairly to women generally and globally, although they do not say this. previously, the organizers released this statement which indicates their intention to fight for our right to meet as females; and another statement here concerning the legal issues and difficulties involved in meeting in female-only space in the UK. again, no mention is made of why this is necessary; nowhere in these statements is there an acknowledgement of or an appeal to end womens sexual and reproductive abuse by men, or why its important, or how they wish to achieve this. and (therefore) no mention of anything of any importance to radical feminists or radical feminism as a matter of fact.
from an outsiders perspective (i did not attend) and assuming that it served some legitimate purpose, it seems as if the intent and effect of radfem13 was meta — the purpose of meeting in the UK in women-only space was to prove that they could. one wonders whether this was fair to women who traveled long distances to attend a radical feminist conference, rather than a reformist one, or one centering the legal situation in the UK which does not affect all or even most women globally.
but still, is it possible that, once attendees gathered inside, this conference became radical, or less reformist? sadly, organizers statements made elsewhere indicate that it probably didnt. while all radical feminists must agree that “sex matters” and that trans and queer politickers misuse “gender” essentially as a euphemism for sex, albeit “brain sex” (or as voluntary “performance”) the obviously reformist-oriented radical feminists we see organizing radfem13 and elsewhere misuse both “sex” and “gender” to mean essentially sex-based stereotypes. “stereotypes” which, according to them, are oppressive to both men and women, or at least reflective of the biology or essence of neither, even as we see male violence — and mens sexual and reproductive control of women enforced with male violence — as a global phenomenon that transcends social conditioning, and men across time and place embracing it and manifesting it in various ways. even the “good guys” and men in less violent and “less patriarchal” cultures do this in their own way and we fucking well know it.
and even as we see women, globally and throughout time, dissonating with, negotiating within and around, and ultimately rejecting our sex (not gender) role as mens fuckholes and slaves. equating women with men — against all evidence — is a false equivalence and simply is not rigorous, logical analysis or honest intellectual labor. and conflating “sex” with “sex-based stereotypes” does nothing to locate the root of womens oppression by men — our sexual and reproductive abuse as women, by men as men — in order to liberate women from male dominance.
and finally, i bring up melinda tankard reist’s recent reporting of the young feminist who is single-handedly taking on a notoriously misogynistic american rapper because this is yet another manifestation of reformist-oriented politicking, what it consists of and where it leads. on her blog, reist says,
One of the great rewards of this work is seeing a growing wave of young women go into battle against violence against women in all its brutal manifestations, calling out and naming this violence as unacceptable. One such woman is 24-year-old Talitha Stone. […] Talitha’s passion and gutsy activism gives me hope that things can change.
okay. here, we have reist, a well-known, seasoned radical feminist who makes money on radical feminism as a speaker and writer, applauding and encouraging individual women who dont make money on it and who in fact may have little or nothing to gain from it, to engage in “gutsy activism” (and everything that entails including the very real danger of physical and emotional violence by men) by taking on a misogynistic industry and all misogynists everywhere — in this case by protesting rap lyrics that describe the sexual abuse of women by men. how and indeed whether this instance or this kind of activism is likely to liberate women from male dominance is never made clear. and frankly, giving well-known seasoned radical feminists who make money from radical feminism hope that things can change, in the complete absence of evidence that this is true, or even that radical feminism informs this activism, how, and why, is not a good enough reason for anyone to do it or to expect anyone to do it, or to applaud those who do it at great cost to themselves.
indeed, if a woman throwing herself on the pyre in this manner inspires hope, and i think this is an apt metaphor, one might wonder “hope for what, exactly?” hope that the next generation of women will fall into the same reformist traps, creating paying “radical feminist” jobs and opportunities for MOAR ACTIVISM, and more meta — the continuance of reformism itself, in other words, as opposed to identifying the root of and liberating women from male dominance — is what it sounds like to me.
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.
many of us know by now that if you play mens games (voluntarily or involuntarily) you are bound to lose, if you are a female-bodied person. this might seem “unfair” or discriminatory or even like blatant insanity, and indeed some of us have been acting like this has all been just one big misunderstanding this whole time. that if we could only articulate the unfairness (or insanity) it would be magically remedied. as if the point of the game was equity, and the whole point was definitely NOT to benefit men at womens expense. interestingly, the “accidental unfairness” principle seems to be both the premise and the conclusion of equality activating. in other words, we work from the assumption that its all just a big mistake, and then no matter what evidence is forthcoming (including evidence that its all very deliberate indeed) we conclude that it mustve been an accident.
note that there is no room here for evidence, or reality, or changing course or anything except heading in the same direction forever. a notably circular direction. judge trudy — a skit from a childrens television program — illustrates the concept of bias and circular reasoning (and victim blaming!) perfectly. the premise of judge trudy is that the judge always sides with the children no matter what. the premise of the grown-up (patriarchal) legal system is not that different. get it?
so i was thinking about the alleged “logistical problem” we have in our prison system where there simply is not enough room for all the men who commit crimes. often times, violent offenders are released because there isnt enough room to house them all — one proposed remedy to this problem of overcrowding (of mens prisons by criminal men) has been to legalize drugs. okay, thats not a bad idea — if men dont have legal remedies backing up their property rights to their drugs, they resort to violence. give them ownership rights over their drugs and they might not kill each other over disputes of ownership, creating additional violent offenders “we” dont have room for. and, like, the fact that using drugs is a “victimless crime” or whatever, so users wouldnt go to jail just for using or buying drugs. but im more interested in the property ownership aspects of it at the moment.
we are all the time working with the understanding that men will kill each other and everyone if they are given even the slightest impetus to do so. no one ever says this directly, but this is the reality of it, isnt it? we wonder why men dont take rape seriously, and feminists speculate that its because a great number of men rape, and that they all benefit from it which is clearly true. but you know what else is probably true? the people who work in (patriarchal) law enforcement and the judicial system know for a fact that if he *only* raped you, you got off fucking easy. you are lucky he didnt kill you on top of it because thats what men do. and we dont have room for all the men who murder, attempt murder, or viciously assault, let alone those who “merely” rape, which is almost all of them depending on the definition you use (including the “legal” one, not incidentally). there isnt enough room for all of them. if men were punished for rape almost all of them would be in jail and practically none of them would be free and thats just no way to run a “society” is it? (or is it?)
but what would happen if there was no more property ownership at all? what if no one owned anything anymore, including drugs? there would be more violent offenders, as men took it upon themselves to protect something that doesnt legally exist — ownership rights over property. honestly, this outcome is quite terrifying, the upside being that suddenly there wouldnt be any more property offenses either. so presumably we would have all that extra space in our prisons currently being taken up by the perpetrators of property crimes, including the only crime besides being prostituted that women commit more frequently than men — shoplifting. we would finally have room for all the violent men who commit crimes of violence against actual people. one might initially assume that this would include violent offenses men commit against women, but not so fast.
rape is still a property crime, see. rape is not defined or discussed as other violent offenses are, as something harmful or reasonably likely to result in serious harm or death — it is defined and discussed in terms of “consent” which is the language of trespass, not violence. as in trespassing, on someones property, get it? we have discussed this before. if we did away with property crimes, opening up all that extra space in jail for violent offenders, the number of violent offenders would skyrocket as they killed each other over property disputes (because men are more or less inherently violent and there is no way to stop this or change it — ask anyone except a reformist-oriented feminist!) but notably, rape wouldnt be a crime anymore at all. men would kill each other for raping each others women so the murderers would be in jail but the rapists would be dead.
see what i did there? it is suspiciously as if men cannot be jailed for committing rape under any circumstances, using any reasoning. this quirk of reality could theoretically be “reformed” if it was an accident, but i dont think it is — if left to “chance” the statistical probability of any outcome (out of two) is about 50/50 but what we see is that men win all the time and women always lose, perhaps particularly in the area of criminalizing rape, and providing meaningful punishments/deterrents to men raping women. so can you reform a system that is actually working perfectly, and exactly as it was intended?
perhaps more importantly, why would anyone want to? dont you ever get sick of trying to teach men how to be good people (and then taking the blame when you almost inevitably fail)? the fact appears to be that men want things more or less the way they are — if they didnt, they would change it themselves. men, as a class, are violent, nasty and they oppress women voluntarily because they like oppressing women. they oppress us no matter what — if there is such a thing as “meaningful brain difference” they will oppress us based on that. if there is no evidence (or no accepted or “scientific” evidence) to be found (by themselves usually, as they are the ones in the position to look) of meaningful sex-based brain difference (or of whatever) they will oppress us anyway. somehow they will find a way to do it.
this rather notable “quirk” — that men oppress women no matter what — doesnt seem to mean much to reformist feminists, but it ought to. doing this work because you are scared to death of what men will continue to do (and what they will come up with next) if you dont is a bit short-sighted, and reactive at best. and its definitely no reason to conclude that theres any hope for men. honestly, i dont know where we come up with some of this stuff. feminists using bad reasoning and then maintaining perpetual support for their reformist position using coercive tactics including thought-termination is what it looks like to me. see the discussion here for more on that.
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.
femonade 