Tigtog’s behavior is similar to an idiot’s PART ONE
August 21, 2008
So the other night I get this pingback from Hoyden About Town, which was a very nice blog; one I used to read frequently before I started thinking for myself here at transphobia central and now find myself otherwise engaged with the rape threats in my spambox — descriptions of men’s “fantasies” raping me are Free Speech and it’s Art, so that makes it okay I think according to Tog. Considering the amount of malice dripping from her every syllable, she’d probably say I enjoyed the attention. For whatever wacky reason I didn’t receive this pingback until two days after their post went up, preventing me from partaking of the discussion while it’s still on their front page. Tog would probably rather you not see that conversation. Don’t worry, that’s in part two.
Apparently I have upset some small part of the blogophere with my incessant questioning of transgenderism, as Tog is merely one of dozens who have been ranting hysterically about my homophobia, some more hysterical than others. Hoyden was the only one who didn’t sound hysterical in the usual way, so I’m picking on her. I’m sure Tog is inconsistent enough to complain.
Sorry ’bout upsetting Big Brother, but if the need to switch body parts because the voices in their head told them to made any sense then I would have stopped gently rolling that idea around with other people who are wondering the same thing, here in this humble little bloggy which everybody else is free to ignore. They keep promising they are going to ignore me, but they never do. Apparently they are unable to resist the urg to equate those who would discuss gender and other mental disorders to those who would advocate murder. Apparently a man insulting a woman is too common for Tog to contemplate, but she forbids anyone to insult a trangender playing the fool on a message board under any circumstance.
You see the problem isn’t whether something is or isn’t phobic — that’s another post for another day, the problem is that no disagreement is allowed on the grounds that any disagreement whatsoever is automatically transphobic and therefore not allowed on the grounds that it’s transphobic. Well that sentence certainly ran in circles, didn’t it? Kind of like every argument supporting transgenderism I’ve dissected though I haven’t bothered writing about them yet. No point, not when it’s all considered “hate”.
George Orwell would be proud. And when more people become aware of the tangled bushel baskets full of wrangled misconceptions and strangled dispositions of the tactics used by the transgendered, their name will be lower than any Men’s Rights Activist dressed up in a Batman costume. Something only becomes phobic after it’s received general consensus validation and not before — this simple factoid they ignore.
I’d rather they discuss the possibility of gosh I don’t know learning the difference between hate and love and agreement and objection but I assume no improvement will be forthcoming on that score. When you only see the problems of the world in shades of black and white, any of the thousand shades of grey become only the confusionary tips of an iceberg which don’t exist in their world because it’s already melted under the scorching glare of environmental group delusion. George Orwell hated groupthink too, he thought it tended toward petty fascism.
Their behavior reminds me of a woman who dresses up a little, hoping to meet a friend with similar interests; and because she’s standing on a public streetcorner, these clods feel compelled to harrass from a safe distance from across the street, sure in the knowledge that the pretty little girl in the pretty little green dress would woop their non-logical ass if they said such gross stupidity to her face.
Except I wouldn’t do that, because I wasn’t raised in a barn and no offense against people who were. There is nothing wrong with being raised in a barn, my maw was raised in a massive log cabin hand-hewn by her pappy with a dirt floor hard-packed to stone and cedar shingles treated once or twice with the potion from a flower, and that damn thing is still solid as a rock today. The water came from a well over a spring in a grove of sycamore trees, and she walked eight miles to school each day or some ridiculous amount swinging a tin pail full of cornbread for her supper. But for all her limitations her maw had enough sense to brush the straw from her eyes, and made her read Aristotle in the orignal greek, bitterly complaining about that ’til she was fifty-four. I lucked out and got the big house with a dishwasher and paperbacks from the store and a private college later, but always there were summers returning to the old ways of doing pumping water from the well in the middle of the scyamore grove.
Which is my way of saying that while I respect and value highly all the high fahlutin plastic magic originating from the laboratory departments of colleges and universities, I value the basics more. Because without boring you any further with details of her life I saw with my own two eyes how a little bit of luck and freedom, lots of logic and common sense could be leveraged to take a little girl raised in a fucking barn and make her fly high over the heads of those who would regulate her to nothing more than their personal pornstar fucktoy, cleaning lady and baby factory all the days of her life. If only she hadn’t married the fucking german. Oh please, by all means blame me for that. Anyway, I’m rambling and here’s my response to Hoyden or whoever Hoyden is allowing to hurl murdereous slander without consequence on her own blog; Tog who is purporting to speak to a supposedly man-hating homophobic feminazi with green flowers in her hair who is humbly minding her own little business:
Your very first premise is inadequate for the purposes you are utilizing it for. Let’s go over it. Again.
to be continued…
miss Andrea's 
August 21, 2008 at 3:59 am
Ah, you told me that I would probably find this amusing. Indeed I do.
I’m surprised that thebewilderness, who was posting there within 24 hours, didn’t give you a heads-up earlier, she was certainly defending you strongly.
By the way, the sidebar links to “Recent Comments” on the front page show the post sitting there nice and high, with the most comments received in the current crop of posts, so most blog visitors will easily see that it’s an active discussion no matter how many more posts go up on the front page.
Not at all. By all means come and see me refute the root statements of Miss Andrea’s arguments against transgenderism that rely upon dismantling gender theory altogether. [link]
August 21, 2008 at 5:01 am
Hmmm well I’m going to take issue with you on one thing M Andrea. I do (despite rumour to the contrary) know quite a few ‘transwomen’ IRL, and they all seem eminently sane to me. That isn’t to say there aren’t some UNSANE transwomen out there, but I don’t think it’s always accurate to characterise the wish to ‘transition’ as a mental illness.
I think to be quite honest there is more than one motive for transitioning. There are some who do it just because they want to be ‘gender woman’ (ie wear pretty frocks) and they will most likely be unhappy with the outcome. Because it was their gender role they wanted to change, not their body. However I have met several intelligent and insightful people who did just overwhelmingly want to change their body. I don’t know why and I don’t care. But it wasn’t a desire to wear frocks and make up, because most of them don’t.
It’s not transitioning I object to, personally, at all. People have a perfect right to do what they want to with their own bodies. It’s those who express that as being about gender (which not everyone does).
August 21, 2008 at 7:06 am
Oh one more thing about the concept of ‘gender reassigment in the UK’. Lisa Harney states (quite correctly) on the thread in question that it is in fact only those who have legally had “gender reassignment” by the gender recognition panel who will be able to demand to use women only services. So it isn’t just anyone who identifies as a woman (though some activist organisations, notably press for change, think this SHOULD be the case).
However gender recognition is dependent NOT on physical sex reassignment surgery – there is no requirment for this, but a legal diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’. The relevant section of the law is as follows:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/ukpga_20040007_en_1#pb1-l1g2
A lot of legalistic language, but what it amounts to is – if you have LIVED as the other gender for 2 years (how do you prove this?) and a psychiatrist thinks you have ‘gender dysphoria’, that’s it, you are legally the other gender.
No surgery required. So yes under this act we can have women with male genitals, who are entitled to access women only services, or apply for jobs giving personal care, which are single sex. Or vice versa of course, most FTM transsexuals don’t have phalloplasty.
August 21, 2008 at 7:14 am
People have a perfect right to do what they want to with their own bodies. It’s those who express that as being about gender (which not everyone does).
Well, here’s where I get confused. If someone says they don’t want to change their gender, they just want to change their body, then why are they changing their body? In the case of MtF, they must want to be women.
Even if they don’t get all dolled up and just happen to wear t-shirts, jeans, and no makeup, they obviously transitioned to be women. For what purpose?
If we look at gender roles, they involve more than grooming and dressing. I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t go out of my way to be feminine in dress or appearance, but I’ve only ever been mistaken for a man once. I was studying French in Quebec, it was winter, I was bundled up and wearing a bright orange hat with earflaps. As soon as the guy saw my face, he realized his mistake and apologized, but the guy I was with was mortified (he was a butthead).
But I digress. I look like a woman, despite not trying. But I know that I have feminine mannerisms and feminine behavior, which have been socialized into me. When I became a feminist, I became aware of a lot it. So, even if a transwoman isn’t in drag, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t wish to take on the female gender role. After all, if she were planning on looking and acting like a boy, there would be no point in getting the surgery.
Some people argue (and I think it was mentioned in tigtogs post) that there’s a danger to people who don’t conform, so we shouldn’t just encourage men to wear dresses, because they will get beat up or something. Well, what about a transwoman who looks and acts like a guy? So, in that respect, I think it makes MORE sense (from the safety standpoint) to fully embrace the gender role and do the whole drag thing.
I guess the problem for me is, if someone is going all the way and embracing the gender role, then what they’re doing is reifying gender, which isn’t real. But if they’re NOT going to try to look and act like the gender that typically goes along with the biological sex they’re changing to, then I have to ask, “What’s the point, then?”
And it seems to me, if someone says, “I don’t want to be a woman; I just want breasts and a vulva,” then that seems more like a fetish than anything.
But if there is, in fact, a sizeable percentage of people who just cannot seem to act the way society expects them to, based on their sex, and they experience harassment and violence because of it, then surely, the people who are the most transphobic are the ones harassing them and harming them. Those people are upholding the gender binary with violence.
Calling radfems transphobic, simply because we are questioning the whole transgender phenomenon and wondering what the motivation is that underlies it isn’t correct. Radfems question the gender binary. Both transfolk and transphobics are upholding the gender binary. Even though they seem to be on opposite sides, they are still operating from the same premise. Women look and act like A. Men look and act like B. And if the way you look and the way you act don’t match up, then something is wrong. Actually, they aren’t so different. Transphobics’ solution to the body and behavior not matching up is to do violence to those people. The solution for transfolk is to do violence to themselves (surgery).
When radfems say that it’s all bullshit, we’re talking not only to transfolk, but to society at large, to all the people who take gender roles seriously.
August 21, 2008 at 7:15 am
But which gender theory? There’s more than one! However most feminist gender theorists are agreed that gender has no OBJECTIVE existence i.e. it is a construct and would cease to exist if people stopped believing in it. Yeah it’s “real” in the sense law is real – i.e. it only exists because humans believe in it.
So if some people really, really believe they are Napoleon, does that mean they ARE Napoleon?
Does the fact that millions of people, believe in Allah, and millions follow the Buddha, and millions follow Jesus Christ, and millions are Hindus, and really really believe in these different Gods mean that all those gods are real as well? How can they be? Each of these religions contradicts the other.
The fact that someone really, really believes in something doesn’t mean it’s REAL.
August 21, 2008 at 7:28 am
I think the confusion is arising Bonobobabe because you’re assuming that people only want a female biological body so that they can fulfill the gender role ‘woman’. The two are not necessarily the same. It’s just that we can’t separate them because of the way society constructs gender. Anyone with an apparently female body is assumed to be of gender woman.
You can be a ‘woman’ socially if you “pass” successfully however, even if you have a penis. Think of ‘The Crying Game’. And in the UK you can be a woman legally even if you’re biologically male.
But what if you only want to change your body – ie change your physical sex. It is possible. Most transwomen I have ever known haven’t been at all bothered about being ‘feminine’, or ‘women’ they’ve just spoken of a deep discomfort with their physical body.
August 21, 2008 at 7:59 am
Ha, ha. Speaking of “The Crying Game,” I never saw it when it was released. But I listened to all the talk about it. People seemed to be completely taken by surprise by the person they thought was a woman who ended up being a man. Several years ago, I rented it. As soon as I saw that person, I knew it was a man. And I remember thinking, “Are people that stupid that they couldn’t tell this was a guy?”
This is apropos nothing. It just sparked a memory.
August 21, 2008 at 8:14 am
Most transwomen I have ever known haven’t been at all bothered about being ‘feminine’, or ‘women’ they’ve just spoken of a deep discomfort with their physical body.
I guess I just don’t understand that. On the one hand, I feel like they’re being disingenous when they say that. Kinda like, pro-lifers saying they care about the unborn baby, when their real motivation lies elsewhere, because caring about unborn babies is more palatable. On the other hand, it may be a situation of my just not understanding because it’s never been my experience.
I am uncomfortable with parts of my body, because I am brainwashed by society to feel bad if I don’t conform to standards of beauty for women, like the amount of adipose tissue in my midsection and my rear.
Also, I have two parts of my body that have been surgically altered. I am only uncomfortable with one, however. My nose. I had surgery to correct a deviated septum when I was young, and the surgeon actually made my nose more crooked…seriously crooked. Years later, I had the original septum fixed properly, but to repair what the first surgeon fucked up is quite challenging, and I refuse to allow another doctor to operate on me.
The other part is my abdomen. I was rushed to the hospital moments after birth and had surgery to correct a diaphragmatic hernia. The scar grew with me and runs along the length of my ribcage. It’s actually pretty large and grotesque, simply because it looks so primitive. You can see the incision line and the “dots” on either side where the stitches were. This does not bother me at all. And I think it doesn’t bother me because, for all intents and purposes, it was there from birth. I don’t know any other reality. It’s how my abdomen looks, and it’s fine.
I don’t know if this is making a point, or my just blathering on. Maybe some of each. 🙂
August 21, 2008 at 9:11 am
Polly:
“I think the confusion is arising Bonobobabe because you’re assuming that people only want a female biological body so that they can fulfill the gender role ‘woman’. The two are not necessarily the same.”
Yeah, I agree with that and it is a problem that the two are linked, because it causes “pressure” in both ways, e.g.:
– if you just want to change “gender” you are highly pressured to change sex even if you don’t quite want to. Not only through legal requirements (in some countries at least) or psychiatrists’ model, but in explicit or implicit pressure that woman=lack of penis.
– if you just want to have some body modifications which are not in the sense of the “binary” : if you are a man there is no problem if you want to 3nl4rge your P3nis, remove your breasts (e.g, if you have gynecomastia) ; but if you are e.g. a woman who wants to get mastectomy for esthetic or pratical reasons, you can’t… unless (in my country at, this might be different elsewhere), you go to a psychiatrist who says that you are transsexual.
I mean, we can have discording views on trans*ism and body modifications.
(Personally I am bothered by the commercialisation of surgery and the way it is presented as the necessary way to have a perfected body, but I am also bothered by the “natural” rethoric basically saying “it is bad to alter your body unless it is for survival”. I mean, on one case it is the doctor who owns your body, in the other it’s God who have given it to you, and since the only difference between a doctor and God is that God knows s/he isn’t a doctor, that’s quite the same thing).
But I think every feminist should agree to denounce the fact that it is perfectly OK to have surgery that makes you “more woman” when you are female (e.g, mammoplasty, some kind of vaginoplasties where the purpose is to make you boyfriend happier when he penetrates you, etc.) or “more man” when you are male (though there is much less on this side than on women’s, cause only women have to be pretty, after all), but that you have to be diagnosed as mentally ill in order to go the other way.
August 21, 2008 at 9:15 am
Most transwomen I have ever known haven’t been at all bothered about being ‘feminine’, or ‘women’ they’ve just spoken of a deep discomfort with their physical body.
Yes. To the point of telling my mother at the age of 5 (before I even knew or had heard ‘gender’, ‘feminine’, or ‘what a woman was’) that those bits between my legs were wrong, that there had been a huge mistake. For, whatever reasons, I utterly could not deal with being in my physical male body.
I guess I just don’t understand that.
Perhaps I’ve got a mental illness, bonobobabe? There again, I seem to be able to think completely rationally about most other things?
I am uncomfortable with parts of my body, because I am brainwashed by society to feel bad if I don’t conform to standards of beauty for women, like the amount of adipose tissue in my midsection and my rear.
Its not about being uncomfortable with parts of your body because simply society/culture pushes an image of perfection, or beauty. Its about not being able to live in the physical body you were born – you may think that’s the same thing, but to me its not. If I just didn’t like ‘bits of my body’, I could go and get cosmetic surgery if I wanted (and ok, to some, they will always consider genital reassignment surgery as ‘cosmetic’ – to me its the opposite). Its not about fulfilling some sort of ‘ideal’, just to feel at one with myself anatomically.
August 21, 2008 at 9:15 am
Sorry, messed up the italics for quotes!
August 21, 2008 at 9:28 am
BTW, I didn’t mean that to be particularly an attack towards you bonobobabe, so sorry if it came across that way… just that there’s lots of things I might not understand about many things in this world… but because I haven’t experienced them, I am not in a position to refute them.
August 21, 2008 at 9:36 am
the only difference between a doctor and God is that God knows s/he isn’t a doctor,
Ha, ha. That is so true. I work in the medical field (laboratory), and there are some days when I’d just like to tell the doctors to fuck off. I actually have a pretty good life in terms of my freedoms and whatnot. Some days the only thing that reminds me that I’m still living in a patriarchy is work, and that’s only when the doctors call or come in. Bleh.
August 21, 2008 at 9:58 am
just that there’s lots of things I might not understand about many things in this world… but because I haven’t experienced them, I am not in a position to refute them.
I disagree with this. This is said over and over again on feminists blogs. And I think it’s a method of silencing. I am childfree. I’ve never experienced the frustration that comes from dealing with misbehaving kids. But I can certainly say that child abuse is wrong. I don’t need to have special credentials to condemn beating one’s children.
I can’t enter another person’s brain and know what they are thinking and feeling. So, in that respect, yes, I can’t refute them. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t lie to themselves or others, or that people don’t know what their own motivations for a particular behavior are.
For example, there’s a gal at work who is the resident tattle tale. I mentioned her behavior to another coworker, and she said, “Oh, she told me why she does it. She just has high standards for her work and thinks other people should, too.” I said, “That’s bullshit. She’s using high standards as an excuse. She’s trying to cozy up to the boss by pointing out what other people are doing wrong. She’s insecure and this makes her feel better.”
So, yes, I can’t get inside another person’s head, but sometimes human nature is such that you know someone isn’t being genuine. And this is just in general. I can’t speak to the trans issue with regards to this particular point, because I don’t know enough about it.
But what I want to reiterate, is that just because redfems are questioning the motivation behind changing bodies/genders, does not equate with being transphobic, and I wish people would stop saying that. I can’t speak for mAndrea, but I’m sure she doesn’t believe that transpeople should be killed or harmed. I, myself, get completely enraged when I read about anyone being killed for a trivial reason. So, somebody you thought was a woman sucked you off. So, afterwards you find out it was really a man, or a transwoman. So what? I don’t understand AT ALL why men a.) think that is an affront to them in some way, and b.) feel that taking a person’s life is an acceptable reaction to an affront. I think it’s heinous.
But an appropriate reaction is to be enraged at the patriarchal system and the gender binary and most importantly, be enraged at the person committing the crime. An appropriate reaction is not to find a radfem somewhere on a blog who is analyzing the trans issue and wondering what the motivation is for changing one’s body and equate that person with people who go out and murder others. That’s ludicrous.
August 21, 2008 at 10:12 am
Yep what you need Steph in wordpress is the pointy brackets. Like this .
Nearly all of the transwomen I’ve met identify as lesbians or bisexual. Which is another reason that I don’t think it’s as simple as internalised homophobia, as many think. And anybody reading your comments Steph can see you’re a lot more rational than some people on the internet.
The simple fact I think is that there isn’t one single reason why people ‘transition’. For some people I’ve met I think it really, really is gender pressure. Which isn’t a good thing at all. We don’t want to give people surgery when what they want is to escape a socially constructed gender role.
Many heterosexual males ‘cross’ dress and most of them don’t have any desire to have surgery. I think a lot of that is to do with the construction of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in society. That’s why I loved Eddie Izzard’s stand up routine – this was somebody who completely mocked the idea of ‘women’s’ clothes.
The problem arises as Elly says with “medicine” that says you must be either/or and has some deeply retrogressive ideas – because it’s all based, still, on the ideas of Harry Benjamin which were just unreconstructed sexist shit. It’s not medicine at all apart from the surgical bits of course, it’s just gender propaganda.
What the gender apologists have to understand is that by clinging on to the idea, they’re not helping anyone. We don’t have to believe in gender to believe that someone may want to change their physical sex – which it seems to me is the mistake that’s being made all over this debate. If the trappings of gender were removed from the process and the law was framed differently – and I’ve got some radical ideas on how that could be done – we wouldn’t end up with people having surgery they don’t really want/need.
A lot of health authorities won’t fund sex reassignment surgery in the UK now because it has no proven clinical benefit overall. But I think if the process of referral was changed, that outcome would also change. It needs to be made really clear to people having sex reassigment surgery what it does and doesn’t mean. If you have sex reassigment because you really just want to live in the gender role woman of course you’ll have a lousy outcome.
Telling doctors to fuck off – excellent idea. Did I mention I don’t like doctors?
August 21, 2008 at 10:13 am
The brackets disappeared!
August 21, 2008 at 10:17 am
Ok I officially hate wordpress. I put the word ‘Pointy in the pointy brackets and the whole word disappeared. But for future reference Steph……………..
italics = pointy bracket em pointy bracket
end italics pointy bracket/ em pointy bracket
bold = pointy bracket strong pointy bracket
end bold = pointy bracket /strong pointy bracket
They’re the ones next to the letter m on my keyboard
August 21, 2008 at 10:27 am
I understand what you’re saying here Steph which is that we can’t know another person’s internal reality or inner consciousness, which is true. And I assume you are speaking here in relation to a desire to change one’s body physically and the motivations for doing that.
But the logical fallacy that is being promoted in this debate generally is that another person’s internal reality – a belief in gender – must ALWAYS be correct, and that if we don’t share it we are “transphobic”.
And that’s not necessarily the case. Because another person’s internal reality can be, quite simply, erroneous. Now in some cases that doesn’t matter. If my internal reality is I believe in God, but I respect other people’s rights not to believe in God, and don’t expect preferential treatment because of it, it makes no difference.
But if I believe in God, and I believe that I have the right to force everybody else to believe in God, and ban abortion and homosexuality, then obviously that does matter.
August 21, 2008 at 10:37 am
“Some people argue (and I think it was mentioned in tigtogs post) that there’s a danger to people who don’t conform, so we shouldn’t just encourage men to wear dresses, because they will get beat up or something.”
I’m so sick of that argument. They are working very hard right now. They are doing activist work right now. They are working very hard doing activist work right now — so a guy can become a girl.
And yet they can’t work hard or do activist work to make it accept for a guy to wear a dress. Justification.
Surely there is a psyche nurse hanging around somewhere? Mental illness affects a large segment of the population, and the vast majority of them do not look like drooling deranged freaks, nor act like it some/any/most of the time. It is also not their fault and they should be given whatever it is that they need to feel better. Yes, I know Polly doesn’t agree. Steph either, probably. 🙂
“But I think every feminist should agree to denounce the fact that it is perfectly OK to have surgery that makes you “more woman” when you are female (e.g, mammoplasty, some kind of vaginoplasties where the purpose is to make you boyfriend happier when he penetrates you, etc.) or “more man” when you are male (though there is much less on this side than on women’s, cause only women have to be pretty, after all), but that you have to be diagnosed as mentally ill in order to go the other way.”
That is assuming that those two things are the exact same. One is coping or bargaining with sexist expectations, and the other is …? Coping or bargaining with sexist expectations! So, yay, they are the same! However, they are both coping with SEXIST expectations.
Justificatioin by lazy sods to avoid doing necessary work which they claim they want, which makes them hyprocrites. All the while lying to themselves in order to feel good about themselves. Which is another VeryBadThing without a proper name.
3 down, 9997 to go. {Fixed italics for Steph.}
August 21, 2008 at 10:58 am
mAndrea
“However, they are both coping with SEXIST expectations.”
Well, I can see how you can see that having vaginoplasty when you’re a transwoman is coping with sexist expectation (I personally think it can be for other reasons, but well, the only way we can experimentally test this is by removing sexism, which I’m all for doing as soon as possible.). But how is a woman who want her breasts removed because she doesn’t find them practical/esthetic/whatever coping with sexist expectation ? And I am not talking about a “trans man”, the problem is actually that she needs to prove to a psychiatrist that she is a trans man, even though she wants to continue living in a “woman” gender role.
And I mean, going back to trans’, I’m not saying that a trans women undergoing mammoplasty is less “coping with sexism” than a cis woman undergoing mammoplasty. Now the trouble is that one is a mental illness and the other is not.
It’s like marriage. In absolute, I’m against it. But the thing is, well, I’m still fighting for gay rights to marry, because if it exists it shouldn’t be discriminatory.
August 21, 2008 at 11:11 am
Interesting one Elly, well I’ve often thought it would super cool to have a slim boyish breastless body – well I had one once but it was a long time ago. Now I’m fat, to put it bluntly, and that fat is distributed in a very ‘female’ pattern. So any hope of looking ‘boyish’ is fairly vain unless I wear really, really baggy clothes.
If a woman removes her breasts, she’s not doing it to be ‘sexy’ for men (or other women), so yes she is going against the societal ‘perfect’ body. But if you think of the motivations of anorexics – who are often said to be trying to escape being adult and seen as sexual beings – so she’s still reacting to societal pressures, just reacting to them negatively. And though many women have breast reductions because of the physical problems of having big breasts, another motivation for many is that they hate the way men treat them. So there is a sexist pressure there, just in a different way.
And also – if you’re a non feminine lesbian these days, you come under huge pressure to identify not as butch or boyish or whatever but as ‘trans’ and to take physical steps like mastectomy or taking testosterone. So it’s still a sexist pressure, it says that if you can’t be a ‘feminine’ woman you can only be a ‘man’. You can’t be an unfeminine woman.
August 21, 2008 at 11:33 am
Also we need to stop disagreeing M Andrea, or people might realise that we are not ACTUALLY the same person, contrary to popular rumour.
What happened to the Kitty Kat?
August 21, 2008 at 11:36 am
And PS – the pressure on lesbians to identify as ‘trans’ is actually DEEPLY homophobic.
August 21, 2008 at 12:31 pm
And PS – the pressure on lesbians to identify as ‘trans’ is actually DEEPLY homophobic.
I’m glad you mentioned that, b/c something about that was bothering me, and now I know what it was. It’s b/c it’s homophobic. Since society likes women to look feminine, now the lesbians have to look feminine. And if you don’t, you have to become a man. That’s so fucked up.
Reminds me of an episode of The L Word I saw where one of the main characters referred to another lesbian as a “fifty footer,” meaning you could tell she was a lesbian from fifty feet away. I’m not even a lesbian, and I was offended by that. Oh, it’s OK to be a lesbian, just not look like one? Cripes.
August 21, 2008 at 12:51 pm
The L word is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO homophobic don’t get me started. The only ‘butch’ character they had it on had to ‘trans’ straight away.
My friend (who likes her butches) refers to it as ‘straight men’s wank shit’.
August 21, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Also sorry to keep picking what you say apart BBB, but I just noticed that one. You see that isn’t gender, it’s biological sex.
Generally, the way “woman” is constructed in the mind of the average man on the Clapham omnibus is this.
Woman = biologically female adult human being
Now anyone who is ‘woman’ by this definition is meant to also be ‘gender woman’ which is all kinds of crap like can’t fix things around the house, likes pink, wears ‘feminine clothes’ has long hair, wears make up etc.
Now anyone who is biologically female is usually recognisable from their facial features alone – testosterone has quite a marked effect on facial features, so it’s very rare to get someone who genuinely looks like the opposite sex on close scrutiny. So you can be identifiably a ‘woman’ in the sense of being an adult human female but not be fulfilling the gender role of ‘woman’.
Hence the incident I remarked on on my ex blog where some scally youths said of me ‘She looks like a boy’. Well obviously I didn’t look like a boy, or they wouldn’t have said she – they meant I wasn’t feminine, and wasn’t fulfilling the gender role of woman.
August 21, 2008 at 7:52 pm
If we look at gender roles, they involve more than grooming and dressing. I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t go out of my way to be feminine in dress or appearance, but I’ve only ever been mistaken for a man once. I was studying French in Quebec, it was winter, I was bundled up and wearing a bright orange hat with earflaps. As soon as the guy saw my face, he realized his mistake and apologized, but the guy I was with was mortified (he was a butthead).
Also sorry to keep picking what you say apart BBB, but I just noticed that one. You see that isn’t gender, it’s biological sex.
No problem. I’m not taking it personally.
But that part of my comment was a digression. If you read further down, I make the point that despite not having feminine grooming, I still have feminine mannerisms and behavior that, although I am aware have been socialized into me, I still exhibit. So, even though I have feminine features which give me away as a woman, I also have feminine mannerisms.
My beef with people who simply want to surgically alter their bodies without the desire to change their gender is that it doesn’t make sense. If you have a penis and don’t want it, but you intend to continue to be a male gendered person, then what’s the point in getting rid of the penis? If you aren’t going to try to pass as female gendered by behavior and mannerisms, even without the drag aspect of it, then again, what’s the point?
If you want to get rid of your penis because you feel like a woman, then I really have a problem with that, b/c what does it feel like to be a woman? I am a woman. But I can’t say I feel like a woman. I have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, but nothing I could specifically say was “female.”
I am drawn to the fiber arts. But during the middle ages, all the knitters were men. So, I can’t say that my desire to do a female craft like knitting makes me a woman. I cry easily. But we all know that that is partly socialization. All kids cry easily until it’s beaten out of the male children. I like pink, but my most favorite colors are blue, purple, and gray. So, again I ask, What the hell does it feel like to be a woman? No one knows.
So, if a person says, “I feel like a woman/man,” then I take exception to that, because “feeling like a woman/man” doesn’t exist. And if a person wants to change their biological sex, without adopting the behavior and lifestyle of the socially constructed gender that goes with it, then I think that could possibly be a fetish. Because the only point of biological sex is reproduction. Reconstructed genitals aren’t functional in that respect. So, there’s no point in becoming the opposite biological sex, since you won’t be able to reproduce. And anyone who insists they just ARE the opposite sex are operating from the notion of gender, which is a social construct, and they could, if they wanted, just pass as the opposite gender without mutilating their bodies.
See, if someone just doesn’t fit in with the gender that typically goes with his or her biological sex, and experiences harrassment and/or violence for it, then I can understand wanting to pass as the other gender for safety reasons. There have been cases of women passing as men (Joan of Arc, George Elliott, George Sand, etc.). But they simply dressed in drag and passed as men. They didn’t surgically alter their bodies or exclaim that they were indeed men. It’s the final step to surgery which makes me unable to give up on the whole fetish idea.
But, again, I must reiterate (not for the benefit of the people on this blog, but for the other people) that even if I believe it’s a fetish, that doesn’t mean I think transgendered people should be murdered. Gawd, I think almost every guy I had sex with had a fetish of some sort. Do I think they should all be murdered? Well, hmmm. I guess I am a radfem, so the default answer is yes. 😉
August 21, 2008 at 9:11 pm
“My beef with people who simply want to surgically alter their bodies without the desire to change their gender is that it doesn’t make sense. If you have a penis and don’t want it”
On the other hand, “surgically altering a body” covers more than “having a penis and not wanting it”. I am not sure things like mastectomy, orchiectomy (removing testicles) are as deeply linked with gender notion as vaginoplasty/phalloplasty are.
“So, if a person says, “I feel like a woman/man,” then I take exception to that, because “feeling like a woman/man” doesn’t exist.”
You can say that “feeling you’re a man/woman” doesn’t exist, but can’t you say that of nearly all “identity” feelings ? I mean, if I take “nationalism” identity, some people will say that they feel they have some strong regional identity, for some other it’s a national one, for some it’s both, for others it’s none…
I guess how you construct to feel that you are xxx is a matter of what you’re told you are, how you get along with people who defines this way, the feeling that you share things in common…
I think you can also have an identity in opposition to other groups. Personally I don’t think I have a strong gender identity, but I feel being a “woman” when I’m treated as such (that is to say, not quite as an equal) by some guy. Just like I don’t have a strong sense of national identity and don’t define as “french”, but I feel “french” when posting on this kind of blog because I have to struggle a bit with the language and some other differences, which makes me feel foreigner.
“Because the only point of biological sex is reproduction.”
Eeeer… so, with this logic, how isn’t homosexuality (and non-reproductory sex) a fetish, too ? I mean, if its only point is reproduction, is there a real difference between supressing this possibility and “refusing” to use it.
Personally, I’d tend to say that the main goal of biological sex is actually to have sex and pleasure. So I’d think that if someone, for whatever reason (which might be constructed, of course) isn’t able to take pleasure with his/her organs and think this could change after surgery, that’s a quitte good reason to undergo it. Well, maybe it’s a decomplexed fetichist attitude, but I think there is enough human population to allow us not to worry about reproduction.
But I don’t think it’s the main reason for people to undergo sex reassignement.
“And anyone who insists they just ARE the opposite sex are operating from the notion of gender, which is a social construct, and they could, if they wanted, just pass as the opposite gender without mutilating their bodies.”
But again, how do you define body alterating (which is here stated asmutilating ?) Personally I definitely need at least hormones and permanent facial hair epilation if I want to pass to everybody. It is permanent body alteration. Is there a real qualitative difference with surgery because there is no blood ? I don’t know.
Besides, if you want to pass as the “opposite” gender, i think it is much more comfortable at a social level to have surgery (and for ftms and mastectomy, not only at a social level, since it allows to remove the binding). And for mtfs at least I think it is particulary important in order to have a sexual life (I don’t have stats, but I read multiple trans women reporting that they had absolutely no sex before SRS and had a sexual life after. So there is a link with my point above: I guess it’s better to have a constructed vagina that you are using than a natural penis which doesn’t serve).
August 22, 2008 at 2:45 am
You’re right BBB that there’s a lot of subconscious body language involved in being ‘male’ and ‘female’. However if you look at gay men and lesbians – their body language is usually substantially different. My friend (who’s a pscyhology lecturer as well as an old dyke) makes the point that you can tell a lesbian by the way she stands and walks. And that’s no shit, you can. Everyone thinks lesbians have “gaydar” but it’s not some weird sixth sense, it’s just that we’re a lot more attuned to visual clues like that.
The point being that no one thinks we’re male, even if we’re not performing a ‘female’ gender role and using typically feminine body language. Because we largely judge someone’s biological sex by things like their facial features and overall body shape and height.
Now I have absolutely no desire to change my physical biological sex, but I want nothing to do with gender role woman. And yes – if you put me in sufficiently baggy unisex clothes, usually my baggy jeans and the cagoule I wear constantly because it pisses it down round here, I pass for male, even though I’m only 5 feet 5 inches tall. And I have a huge fat woman’s arse and childbearing hips. But as soon as someone sees my face, they realise their mistake.
I don’t have any beef with someone who wants to believe anything they want personally, as long as they don’t insist that I have to believe it too, that it should be enshrined in law, and that they therefore have a right to disregard everyone else’s right to safety.
August 22, 2008 at 3:32 am
**Personally, I’d tend to say that the main goal of biological sex is actually to have sex and pleasure. **
Spoken like a true man.
Touch is a basic human need. It’s as necessary as sleep, food and water. Humans, like all primates, become psychotic when deprived of it.
This is not to be confused with sex (the verb). Sex is totally unnecessary. Human beings can live just fine without it.
As for reproduction, it’s sperm that impregnates women. Not penises. There is no reason under the sun for men to fuck women. At least not biologically speaking.
Personally, I think men saw animals fucking, and monkey see, monkey do, imitated it. Men probably started off fucking animals. Even in the bible they had to tell men to knock it off with the beastiality and quit fucking the animals. These days, I don’t know many men who haven’t fucked their dog, so they’re still at it. Oh, don’t act shocked. Men often brag about this shit behind closed doors. So you might want to think about this the next time you want to fuck a man. You have no clue where his dick’s been. Chances are he’s still cheating on you with the family pets.
I think men then graduated to wanting to fuck each other, as well as women and children, to supplement their animal fucking. Power over, dominance and rape is no doubt pleasurable to men. They still think it’s the cat’s meow, pardon the pun.
So what are trans into? Fucking and being fucked. Men are all about fucking. In fact, in order to construct a “vagina” for a trans, they insert a dildo or whatever in to make sure a penis will fit. Because this is all a vagina is to a man. A fuck hole. You see, it doesn’t matter if men are het, gay, bi, or trans. They’re all pretty much walking dildos and fuckers.
Oh, there’s nothing biological about it. Spare me the sex drive nonsense. Otherwise you’d have to say that men’s sex drive includes having to fuck animals, and we should just get use to it and accept that too.
What men eroticize is power, not sex. Fucking has little to do with love. It’s about dominance and submission. This is what turns the little fuckers on. And trans are no exception. Top, bottom, it doesn’t matter. As long as there’s a dom and a sub and there’s a whole lot of fucking going on. Men simply can’t fuck anything they view as equal. Because again, it is not the sex itself that turns the little fucker on. It’s the dominance and submission part that turns him on. This is what he calls gender. Whether you’re a dom or a sub. But the little fuckers get bored easily and want more variety. So he creates all these different varies of the dom/sub model and calls it gender bending and says there’s like 69 genders out there. But of course, there isn’t. It’s just the same old, same old binary — dominance and submission. Yawn.
Now, wanna know the real difference between the boys and the girls? Just take women’s autonomy away. Women get raised as chattel and get bred like barnyard animals. Are mtf trans ever raised as chattel and bred like barnyard animals? Not only no, but fuck no.
Now spare me the man-made woman shit, Dr. Frankenstein, which is just one more garden variety of your dom/sub fetish, which has been going on for what? About 10,000 years now?
As for trans being mentally ill… well, they’re men, aren’t they? Therefore, it’s redundant. Men’s minds went around the bend a long time ago.
August 22, 2008 at 3:34 am
You are making way too much sense BBB. I’ve never understood the idea behind “I need to look like a girl because I feel like a girl”.
He already feels like a girl while he still has a penis, supposedly, so he has a penis and while he has a penis he feels like a girl. He doesn’t need a vagina to feel feminine because he claimed he already felt feminine while having a penis.
I’m just fascinated by the body part aspect of it. Body parts do not contain essential character; and therefore are not required to express essential character. So there must some other reason for the switching of body parts.
Therefore, it can only be a fetish, mental illness, or coping mechanism.
And if they have to work so hard convincing the general public that they need to switch body parts as a coping mechanism, then they could work equally hard convincing the public that it’s okay for a guy to walk around feeling feminine.
So it’s all completely ridiculous to me and why is it that the idiotic vanilla girls fall for this stupid crap? Because they want to believe something, but what is that something? What do they think is happening when a man needs specific body parts to express internal character? To me, the body parts have become merely an accessory like any other external accroutemente, except it’s permanent like a tatoo. I can tatoo a penis on my thigh and that doesn’t make me a man.
August 22, 2008 at 7:45 am
So it’s all completely ridiculous to me and why is it that the idiotic vanilla girls fall for this stupid crap?
I have been thinking about this, too, and I think the answer is that they have a couple of mistaken beliefs. One is that they think that tolerance trumps all. We have to be tolerant of everyone and everything, else we’re being “phobic.” And being tolerant not only means accepting people who are different than we are as fellow citizens, it means that we aren’t allowed to criticize them. I have a co-worker who is lazy and manipulative and tries to get out of doing his work. He’s the only male in the lab, and he’s the least valuable worker. Anyway, when I talk about how lazy he is, nobody says, “Hey, you’re being co-worker-phobic!” Of course not. I have a right to criticize anyone. My criticisms may be unfounded, of course. There’s always that risk. But the act of criticizing is not phobic by nature.
And I think they’re worried about a slippery slope. They’re afraid if challenges to the thought process of transfolk is allowed to stand, then where will it end? People will start being intolerant of homosexuals and feminists and other “deviants” who don’t toe the party line. Well, first of all, there already are people who are intolerant of homosexuals and feminists. Last time I checked, men haven’t stopped harassing and murdering gay people and women.
Here’s a great article about tolerance:
http://www.offourbacks.org/Articles.htm#Live
Also, on that same website, there’s an article about how homosexuality is a choice. I know a lot of people don’t believe it. But I found the article compelling. I think the motivation for some people in trying to prove that homosexuality is an inborn trait is to get the religious assholes off their backs. So, I think there’s a similar motivation with transfolk. People are afraid that because there’s so much violence and harm done to transpeople, that the answer is to always say nice things and accept them and never criticize them or question their motives because that would be encouraging the perpetrators of violence. But I think those two things are separate.
Physically harming or murdering a person is NEVER right. The ONLY exception to this is self-defense. So, no one should be able to use the debate about whether or not transfolk have fetishes or are they really the opposite sex trapped in another body as justification for committing a crime. Just like homophobics can’t use the discussion about whether or not homosexuality is a choice as fuel for their hate. If it turns out that homosexuality really is a choice, or that gender identity disorder really is a mental illness means nothing when it comes to how they are treated. That would still not be justification for harming them, taking their lives, or discriminating against them. (By the way, I don’t consider not letting transwomen into a woman-only space as discrimination).
So, I understand their motivation to stop the violence by insisting that everyone only ever say positive things about transfolk and accept their narrative as legitimate. But it’s intellectually dishonest. We need to separate legitimate questioning and debate from people who are truly phobic and violent. They aren’t the same thing at all.
August 22, 2008 at 8:42 am
totally post worthy, BBB, every single comment you’ve made. But to the transfolks, literally even disagreement is violence commited against transgendered. Hmmm, started to use the “transphobic” but slipped the other phrase in there. Think I’ll start using that instead, makes the point more clear.
“DISCUSSION IS MURDER” Orwell would be proud… but violence against real women is still Art, Free Speech, and Transgressive. Hmmm, like that last word too. teehee. I’m thinking you should be writing about this, not me, BBB. I suck.
August 22, 2008 at 8:47 am
BBB, can I quote you entensively in a post? Do you have a blog that you want me to include? There’s at least one more I want to do on hate. This one was just me whining about being called a murderer. I am a pacifist feminazi, damnit!
August 22, 2008 at 9:05 am
People are afraid that because there’s so much violence and harm done to transpeople, that the answer is to always say nice things and accept them and never criticize them or question their motives because that would be encouraging the perpetrators of violence.,
Funny how these same people aren’t concerned about the violence and harm done to women and think the answer is to always say nice things to women and never criticize women or question their motive because that would only encourage more violence. The opposite seems to hold true, no?
So I think it’s because at some level, everyone knows that trans are men, and women are conditioned to take care of and protect men, even if it comes at their own expense. Men are given much more value than women and everything that comes out of their mouth must be true because men are the authorities on everything. Or so our society conditions people to think.
At the same time, women are conditioned to view other women as competition, as they compete for the attention and approval of daddy. Er, I mean, males. Women are also raised and conditioned to put everyone before themselves. Even the dog. Women are expected to be givers, never takers. They must sacrifice, serve and give unselfishly. To whom? Men of course. And children as well. Because male is considered to be the default for children and fetuses. So it is standard to just think of children and fetuses as little men, until proven otherwise.
Men, on the other hand, are raised and conditioned the opposite way around. To be takers and think of themselves as #1, putting no others before them. They are raised with a sense of entitlement and expectation to have women serve them and take care of them. Trans are no exception. They’re not from Pluto. They’re raised and conditioned like every other male on planet Earth.
In short, it’s just more of the same old, same old, tired old business as usual, living under the patriarchy. We really have achieved true equality in this aspect. Both men and women love the male born. And both men and women despise the female born.
August 22, 2008 at 9:30 am
The tolerance thing is funny, because we had the arguement the other way around at a LGBTI event some weeks ago, which also explicitly claims a “feminist” aim. And some people (who were mostly gay men) argued that our policy of claiming the “feminist” goal and the refusal of sexist and transphobic behaviours was intolerant, because it excluded some people and associations (namely a right-wing christian gay association and a pro-psychiatrisation trans association).
For me it is not a question of being “tolerant” or “intolerant” or allowing to criticize. (And I mean, honestly, given the number of books, blogs, etc. explaining how bad
transgender is, is that really impossible to say ?). The problem is not the fact of emitting critics, it’s the content.
You can have critics of “gay” movement but if someone says that the problem is that homosexuality is inferior because it isn’t reproductory, and that marriage is a man and a woman, even if we drop the question of “homophobic” qualification, personally I don’t think there is some common political ground, and even if they say “but violence against gay is bad” they will still be my enemy because we have too much divergences.
And it’s exactly the same thing concerning trans people. I can handle critcism about whether having surgery is because of sexism or that I shoudn’t take hormones. But when it comes to negating that I suffer from oppression of women, or saying that psychiatrisation is a good thing, no way. There again, we have too much divergences : it’s not just that I am being offended as a tranny, but that their feminism and mine aren’t the same.
“We need to separate legitimate questioning and debate from people who are truly phobic and violent.”
Yeah (except, well, who defines what is legitimate ? who does the separation ?), but people who do the “legitimate questioning” have a responsibility too. And this means not allowing “phobic” behaviour in their ranks or at least distancing from it. I mean, if I am discussing with a group of “trans-critical” feminists on quite “sane” bases and suddenly one of them says to me “anyway, you don’t have a womb so you can’t be pregnant so you will never be a woman. Face it, deluded man”, and the other “not transphobic, just critical” feminists say nothing, well, I’m sorry, but it will be difficult for me to continue having a serene discussion and not finding lhem a bit hypocritical.
August 22, 2008 at 9:55 am
There again, we have too much divergences : it’s not just that I am being offended as a tranny, but that their feminism and mine aren’t the same.
Good point. I don’t think everyone needs to embrace everything. There’s no reason why everyone couldn’t have their own movement. Black feminists are separating themselves from white feminists, and I think that’s fine. Some people write about pornography a lot on their blogs. I hate porn, but I don’t write much about it. My focus tends to be male-female relationships…how they suck, how they are bad for women, and why I think women should stay single and childfree, etc. So, someone with a Nigel is probably going to get bored with my blog pretty quickly. I think the mistake is in trying to make everyone care about everyone else’s pet project. There are so many facets to the patriarchy, and so many people who are oppressed in different ways, that we each have our own issues…and I think it’s OK.
but people who do the “legitimate questioning” have a responsibility too. And this means not allowing “phobic” behaviour in their ranks or at least distancing from it. I mean, if I am discussing with a group of “trans-critical” feminists on quite “sane” bases and suddenly one of them says to me “anyway, you don’t have a womb so you can’t be pregnant so you will never be a woman. Face it, deluded man”, and the other “not transphobic, just critical” feminists say nothing, well, I’m sorry, but it will be difficult for me to continue having a serene discussion and not finding lhem a bit hypocritical.
Yeah, I can see your point, Elly.
August 22, 2008 at 10:04 am
BBB, can I quote you entensively in a post?
Sure, you can quote me.
Do you have a blog that you want me to include?
Well, I have a blog. I have it blocked from search engines due to a fucking stalker (men suck big time). I have occasionally let my blog addy slip on some feminist websites (he doesn’t frequent feminist sites, I’m sure, b/c he found me via a carfree group). I don’t necessarily want it broadcast, but it is a wordpress blog, so since you know my username, you could find my blog pretty easily. I don’t want direct links to it, though, because those DO show up in a google search.
I don’t write anything about trans stuff on my blog. Believe it or not, I don’t really care about the issue. It’s just that it has been the main focus of your and polly’s now defunct blog for so long that I actually started thinking about it. I will warn everyone that my blog isn’t strictly feminist in its scope. I also write about my pets, my hobbies, etc. And I am an atheist and blast all religions. So, I often offend knee-jerk liberals who think my rantings about Islam are racist. So…just fair warning.
August 22, 2008 at 11:20 am
The idea of gendered oppression is an interesting one Elly. We can say that gay men – who are targeted because they are seen as ‘feminine’ are the subject of anti woman discrimination in one sense.
I think the point is that a transwoman who does not ‘pass’ as a born female will be placed in the same bracket (and seen as a gay man even if that isn’t the case.) A transwoman who does ‘pass’ of course will be on the receiving end of good old fashioned misogyny unless her trans status becomes know.
Homophobia and transphobia (yes I do believe it exists) stem from the same root – anger at the transgressing of gender roles. And it all comes down to gender of course – that’s the point I keep making, gender does not liberate anyone, it oppresses everyone except heterosexual males, who are the ‘default’ non deviant gender.
I wouldn’t say you don’t experience gendered oppression, I would say it is qualitatively different in some aspects from the oppression of FABs. And I also oppose the medicalization of anyone’s identity. Because until very, very recently homosexuality was a mental illness according to the WHO.
The problem is that the gender advocates are actually perpetuating this medical pathologisation, by going along with the idea of ‘gender identity dyshporia’. Which still IS considered to be a mental illness by the medical establishment.
August 22, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Tigtog: Ah, you told me that I would probably find this amusing. Indeed I do.
“For whatever wacky reason I didn’t receive this pingback until two days after their post went up, preventing me from partaking of the discussion while it’s still on their front page.”
I’m surprised that thebewilderness, who was posting there within 24 hours, didn’t give you a heads-up earlier, she was certainly defending you strongly.
I realize that at the 40 comment mark this may be a bit OT, still it seems an odd thing to say.
Are we to understand that it is the policy at “Hoyden AT” to expect their readers to advise other bloggers that “Hoyden AT” is blogging about them?
Had I not been a daily reader at “Hoyden AT” I would not have known that Tigtog had started a slam fest under the guise of comparing two Carnivals.
It certainly never occurred to me that they were so bereft of common courtesy that they would not advise a person that they had been targeted.
Good to know.
August 22, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“I think the point is that a transwoman who does not ‘pass’ as a born female will be placed in the same bracket (and seen as a gay man even if that isn’t the case.)”
I don’t think it’s that simple. I mean, I actually used to think like you but in real life my feeling is that it’s not quite the case.
I think I don’t really “pass”, yet I estimate that I have undergone oppression “as a woman”. And I think it is quite different than homophobia when I am seen as “gay men” or transvestite”. In the latter case it is very confrontational: insults, threats, because gay men and trans are seen as weak, but still men.
What I felt, being seen (or at least considered) as a woman was different, because it was less confrontational : men don’t want to confront you because “you don’t hit girls”. It’s more patronizing and treating as inferior, but where you are supposed to actually appreciate it (and the consequences is that while I didn’t often suffer from homo/transphobia coming from a friend, it is a very different thing concerning sexism. )
I know I express myself poorly, but I mean that I feel a real difference between the cases of “gender oppression” when I’m read as “man” and when I’m read as “woman”. To start, with the former I am told (often with insults) that it’s bad to wear a skirt, whereas in the latter I am told (often with seemingly nice advices) that it’s bad to wear “masculine” shoes.
(And of course, there are cases where it’s not possible to distinguish. If someone whistles or honks the horn at me, I’m not going to ask him his precise intentions.)
Now maybe I am wrong and either it’s not “women oppression” (or I actually pass well, which would be a better error, but well)
August 22, 2008 at 1:15 pm
That is what I meant though Ellie. If you’re read as ‘woman’ you will just get the same stuff other ‘women’ get. If you get read as ‘trans’ you will be put in the same category as ‘gay man’.
All three are gendered oppression – they all stem from gender. But the type of oppression ‘women’ get (which is what you get when you ‘pass’) is qualitatively different than someone who is obviously a transwoman would get.
Anyone who ‘passes’ as the other (birth) sex will get the advantages/disadvantages associated with it. That’s why in the past there were a number women who ‘lived’ as men, such as the jazz musician Billy Tipton. It was usually to live a man’s life, not just to be ‘trans’. There was another really famous case of a doctor, can’t remember the name, when women weren’t allowed to go to medical school. James somebody….
August 22, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Whoops unintentional Smiley there.
August 22, 2008 at 1:35 pm
This is OT, but I have been thinking:
Polly no longer has a blog, but I love reading her words. I loved mAndrea’s stuff on the now defunct IBTP forum, although she was harassed for being TOO RADICAL. Were you actually banned, mAndrea?
Also, I joined up one of the radfem forums that supposedly took the place of IBTP, but already I am fed up with what passes as radical these days. I swear if I read one more thing about how fucking awesome someone’s goddamned Nigel is, I’m going to go off the deep end.
Sooooo, I was thinking of starting a radfem forum that is TRULY radical. Does anyone know if I have to have a domain or anything for that? I was looking at http://www.freeforums.org, but I can’t tell if this is something I can just start doing, or do I have to host it or what?
I’d love to be part of a forum of truly radical women without the constant symbolic sucking off of Nigel. You know, when someone starts a thread about the oppressiveness of het sex, you don’t want some idiot popping in talking about how sex with her Nigel is so great. You just have to find a guy who knows what to do. WTF?
So, if anyone is interested, let me know. You can leave a comment on my blog, or e-mail me, or whatever. I’m kind of excited about this, actually.
August 22, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Maybe Nigel is good in bed though BBB. I have got a blog, it’s just super sekrit and at the moment pure unmitigated anger. M Andrea has failed to find it despite the fact that the address is written down where she can see it!
Look harder M Andrea!
I have no idea about forums. Good name though ‘forumofevol’.
August 22, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Dear gawd if any of you ever do that forum please let me know! I’m almost evol I swear. :). My blog is linked above and because I’m evol *and* anonymous just drop me a comment there.
August 22, 2008 at 2:44 pm
That’s interesting Elly. If you wanted to have a breast reduction in this country, you could, no problem, but I think you’re right -. most surgeons would refuse to do a double mastectomy unless you were at risk of breast cancer, or you have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Which is ironic considering you can get any other type of plastic surgery on demand. I read recently about a lesbian who had a gynaecological disorder which caused constant bleeding, but she was refused a hysterectomy by doctors because they said she might want children in future. Even though she didn’t want to give birth herself, and in any case if she was in a relationship and wanted children, her partner could have them.
Doctors have too much power! I think sex reassigment surgery, well any surgery, should be accompanied by counselling to make sure that the person understands the consequences. But I don’t agree with pathologising other human beings.
August 22, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Those pointy brackets don’t work for me either.
August 22, 2008 at 3:54 pm
blockquote goes inside. I think it’s different words on different blogging software, so it’s hard to remember.
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August 22, 2008 at 6:05 pm
August 22, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Thanks for that Elly, that was really very helpful. The only part I’d have to take issue with, and perhaps I’m taking it too personally, is the part where I extrapolate and infer that I’m supposed to moderate comments. I don’t want to control these folks, and also don’t think my tactless demands would go over too well considering that everybody posting here is smarter than I am.
What perhaps some transfolks may not quite get is the connection between having every single bit of discussion dismissed as “violence against trangendered” and some radfem’s eventual dismal of the trans’s pleas for “even more respect”. That doesn’t work for me.
gimmee something in return, yanno? (That isn’t meant for you personally Elly, just in general.) As Lucky said, women are trained to be accommodating without expecting anything in return. A lesson or two in negotiation would go a long way.
“I mean, if I am discussing with a group of “trans-critical” feminists on quite “sane” bases and suddenly one of them says to me “anyway, you don’t have a womb so you can’t be pregnant so you will never be a woman. Face it, deluded man”, and the other “not transphobic, just critical” feminists say nothing, well, I’m sorry, but it will be difficult for me to continue having a serene discussion and not finding lhem a bit hypocritical.”
There is a huge amount of hatred toward radical feminists being emitted from the transfolks. The transgendered have no reason to expect more respect than they already have until they stop equating discussion with violence.
August 22, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Oh yes BBB they threw my ass out. I am a big meanie who makes little girls cry.
August 22, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Maybe Nigel is good in bed though BBB.
That’s not the point. These people are calling themselves radical feminists, but they’re male identified and male centered. It’s as if they can only take so much criticism of men and they’re compelled to stand up for their Nigel. I think it’s a compulsion.
I can’t think of the word I want to use, but I find it really disturbing when women are having a discussion in a thread entitled “dating woes” or something, and they’re all commiserating about trying to find a feminist man and then some bint comes in and starts My Nigeling all over the place like uncontrolled projectile vomiting. That just sends out the message that it’s not men as a class, or patriarchy that’s the problem; it’s that specific man that you’re with and if you just choose more wisely, you’d get a nice guy like my Nigel. I already get that shit from the culture at large.
Or you’re trying to discuss the idea of intercourse as the default sexual act and how maybe a lot of times you gave in and had intercourse when you didn’t really want to and how you’d love to be able to just say no and engage in other activities that are more mutually pleasurable, and then before you can really get a good conversation going, someone starts posting about how she loves intercourse with her Nigel. He’s so fucking gentle and loving, blah, blah, fucking blah.
It’s derailing the conversation, firstly. Secondly, it’s putting men in the forefront, yet again, and third, it’s reinforcing the same patriarchal heteronormative shit that we’ve been putting up with forever. “There’s no reason to eschew marriage. Find a good Nigel like mine.” “Intercourse isn’t about domination when you’re doing it with my Nigel.” “I know lots of women feel trapped when they’re financially dependent on their husbands, but not me. I love being Nigel’s sex slave.”
If I may rip off George Carlin for a moment: Fuck Nigel up the ass with a big rubber dick!
August 22, 2008 at 10:21 pm
The tolerance thing is funny, because we had the arguement the other way around at a LGBTI event some weeks ago, which also explicitly claims a “feminist” aim.
LGBT isn’t feminist. It’s anti-feminist. And serves everyone under the sun except women. No great surprise there. All the letters except one are male dominated. And the L keeps getting smaller and smaller, no? Look for it to completely disappear. Word, women. Would you kindly cease to exist and disappear? Our existence upsets the poor boys.
You can have critics of “gay” movement but if someone says that the problem is that homosexuality is inferior because it isn’t reproductory, and that marriage is a man and a woman, even if we drop the question of “homophobic” qualification, personally I don’t think there is some common political ground, and even if they say “but violence against gay is bad” they will still be my enemy because we have too much divergences.
Nah, this isn’t what it’s about. That’s just the excuse men use.
Here, let me spell it out for you. “The point of homophobia is to direct men towards women. To punish men for not using women. And that’s an acknowledgment of how aggressive and how dangerous men know male sexuality can be for women.” — Andrea Dworkin
Sounds about right to me. Because what happens when there’s a scarcity of women? Men turn it on each other and self-destruct. That’s why men have to be separated from each other in prison. So they don’t turn it on each other and self-destruct.
I can handle critcism about whether having surgery is because of sexism or that I shoudn’t take hormones. But when it comes to negating that I suffer from oppression of women, or saying that psychiatrisation is a good thing, no way.
Psychology is man-made and therefore, not a good thing. Freud was a coke-head and a male supremist, misogynist asshole that doctored his results to serve and shore up his agenda. Enough said.
You’ve suffered from the oppression of women? Huh? Oh, so you were denied autonomy? You were denied the right to vote? You were enslaved and was a servant to your master and had to pick cotton fields? You were denied education, bank accounts, and weren’t allowed to inherit or keep the wages from your own earnings? Marriages were arranged for you when you were 8 and you were treated like a stud puppet? Were you traded in for 2 cows and a pig? Did your family treat you as a commodity and property and sell you to the highest bidder? Could your new owners set you, their property, on fire if it pleased them? When your partner died, were you blamed and expected to jump onto his funeral pyre? When you couldn’t produce a son, were you beheaded? Did you sit on death row, awaiting stoning, because you were sexually assaulted? Were your feet bound in infancy so that you now painfully hobble? Were you rounded up and sent to concentration camps and gassed with your trans brothers? Or lynched and burned at the stake en masse?
See, that’s the problem with you white boys. You’ve never been oppressed a day in your life and don’t have the slightest clue of what it means. You think oppression is when women tell you to get your boot off their necks and won’t be your mommy and take care of you and be your genie in a bottle and grant you your every wish and desire and let you use their bathroom.
Yeah (except, well, who defines what is legitimate ?
Men.
who does the separation ?),
Men.
You know, men? A group you’ve always been a card carrying member of since the moment of your birth? So that you NEVER had to go through, or be subjected to, or live in fear of any of what I’ve described above? And never had to worry about it?
It’s called “male privilege.” You’re oblvious to your own. Most men are.
August 23, 2008 at 12:34 am
[info on awesome sekrit forum local removed by request. mA]
Oh and m Andrea, the stupidity that is being heaped upon you is ridiculous. I think pisaquari is right with her radfemphobia. But more than that, I think straight women are afraid lesbian feminist power and politics. Female at birth womyn ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO ARE ALLOWED TO DEFINE WHAT THE WORD WOMAN MEANS.
August 23, 2008 at 2:56 am
Yup my Nigel comment was a wee joke BBB…..It’s just I think – hello you ALONE OF ALL WOMEN, have found this man who is a luuuuurve god?
Pull the other one. (that’s an expression that means you are bullshitting me, trans Atlantic readers).
August 23, 2008 at 3:36 am
I still like forumofevol though….
August 23, 2008 at 4:05 am
mAndrea:
“The only part I’d have to take issue with, and perhaps I’m taking it too personally, is the part where I extrapolate and infer that I’m supposed to moderate comments.”
No, that isn’t what I meant, I’m not a big fan of moderation.
How I see it is that there are two possibilities when your are “emitting criticisms” on a group :
1) you estimate that the group is completely opposed to what you think and that they are “adversaries”.
2) you want the group to take into account to the criticisms you emit because you think that if it did there would be no more problems.
In the first case there is no real point arguing with the other group except to insult them. E.g. if you think trans’ are irrevocably anti-feminist by nature, that they will always be men, etc. there is no point trying to argue with them.
In the second case this a bit more complicated, because if you want to have a tiny chance for your criticism to be taken into account,let’s say that it’s easier if they trust you a bit. I mean, you can’t discard the fact that people are human and they are is not always a separation between how a person is seen and how the idea she says is seen. And in order to get this trust I think it’s easier if you distance yourself a bit from position 1) who sees this group as an “enemy”.
Or maybe, to put it differently, discussion between group A and group B is easier if you show that you have divergences inside of group A and you recognize there are different opinions in group B. It avoids polarizing the opinions into two homogenous sides between which discussion becomes much more difficult.
August 23, 2008 at 5:05 am
A valid point in the case of the shouty activists, but I think it’s important not to assume that there is a trans hivemind, any more than there is a Rad Fem hivemind. For “transfolks” online, you can read about 2 ACTUAL trans people and a hell of a lot of non trans hangers on who just want any stick they can to beat up rad fems with.
August 23, 2008 at 8:59 am
Yup my Nigel comment was a wee joke BBB
Oh, good. I was a bit surprised by your comment. I thought you knew better. 😉
One thing I hate about the internet is that it’s hard to get across tone of voice and intonation. Smileys help, but not always.
August 23, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hey bonobobabe, athiest woman, everyone else posting here please join up to the feminist forum that I help moderate. Only radical feminists allowed with private sections for trustworthy members of the radical feminist internetz.
Yay! I hope it’s good. I get disappointed with radfem forums so quickly b/c it’s full of women who are toeing the patriarchy line, but they qualify as radfems because they “blame the patriarchy.” I want inspiration from women who are actually living like radfems, not just talking the talk, but actually walking the walk.
And it’s fucking hard. Sometimes I lie awake at night worried about what will happen when I get old or what if I become disabled and can’t work and on and on. But when I’m not experiencing anxiety, it’s the best fucking life to come home to two cats, my spinning wheel, my ukuleles, etc. and be able to do what I WANT TO DO, instead of immediately getting dinner started for Nigel and Nigel, Jr. and being at their fucking beck and call all the time.
Well, I am at the beck and call of my cats all the time. 🙂
August 23, 2008 at 11:32 am
i’ve never commented on a blog before, but i really feel the compulsion to thank you for this:
“And if they have to work so hard convincing the general public that they need to switch body parts as a coping mechanism, then they could work equally hard convincing the public that it’s okay for a guy to walk around feeling feminine.”
i am very much against the ‘trans’ myth and have found it very difficult to find any other person who understands/expresses/admits the logically fallacy that is the basis of this madness. i am a woman, who sleeps with other women and does not “look” like a woman “should” look. the trans pressure is enormous – trans people always assume that i am trans. I find it incredibly insulting that i should be assumed to be a man or to want to be a man simply because of my physical appearance, by PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ‘ENLIGHTENED’ ABOUT GENDER.
It’s so hard to find any discussion of the problems with trans either since all language has been co-opted by the trans armies – anything against or anti or disagreeing with the trans propaganda is always posited as a negative or violent or phobic event/entity.
I am not transphobic. I’m trans-frustrated, trans-resentful, trans-annoyed. I truly believe that trans people and their misguided and damaging philosophies, actions, and politics are setting both the women’s and gay rights movements back at least 50 years.
I am not at all against people doing whatever they want to their bodies and having whatever fetishes or coping mechanisms they need to make themselves happy. What is upsetting is saying that these things are about gender or about expanding the definitions of gender.
There needs to be some dissonance in this group think, coercive, trans-positive-at-all-costs world. So thank you for this blog and this discussion.
August 23, 2008 at 2:56 pm
“How I see it is that there are two possibilities when your are “emitting criticisms” on a group : ”
This is where the basis of misunderstanding lies, I think.
This discussion is not about you and your group. The sorting that is being attempted here is about the way your group’s activist efforts are affecting women, and womens activist efforts.
August 24, 2008 at 12:01 am
Oh joy, this is a quote by Tig I shall treasure it always.
“Your attempts to apply constructivist discourse so far are working to undermine the concept of gender as a social construct at the very root, a stance which I oppose.”
So gender is not a social construct, according to Tig. And if gender is not a social construct, then the only other option must be that gender is biological, according to Tig. Fascinating.
That drove me insane at Twisty’s BBB. The “personal is political” has too many syllables I guess. Always a group who would conflate one man with 3.7billion. And not to change your subject but that is the same problem with the transgender. When the discussion is about categories some random stranger will cry, “my name is Nigella, we need to discuss ME now” Oh, is there some reason we have to look at every blade of grass to measure how big the yard is?
The only thing it proves is that the person can’t tell the difference between depth and breadth. Yes, like I really trust that person’s judgement.
August 24, 2008 at 12:13 am
Yup can we just explain this whole “social construct” thing ONE MORE TIME.
Social constructs are only REAL in the sense that everyone believes they are real, and acts on them. Examples of social constructs are:
Law
Religion
Sexuality
Race
Now these things are IDEAS. But Law isn’t an idea you say! If I break the law I will be sent to prison! Law is real!
Yeah dumbass – law is only real because society at large has agreed to observe it. And if you look around you will see that many people actually do break the law and get away with it, all the time. Law is just a set of rules, it does not have any independent existence. If you ignore it, it has no force.
So with gender – gender is an idea that a lot of people believe in. Just as religion is an idea that a lot of people believe in. They only ‘exist’ in so far as people believe in them.
I’ve said this about a thousand times now. But people are still not capable of understanding it.
August 24, 2008 at 12:18 am
Well it might happen BBB – there are no insurance policies. Including doing the married with 2.4 children route. Whatever you do, life is a risk. No reason not to live it now. You can’t make yourself safe.
(Brief diversion into philosophy there).
August 24, 2008 at 1:15 am
I am not transphobic. I’m trans-frustrated, trans-resentful, trans-annoyed.
That is brilliant Jane Doe. I think most of us feel that way. 😛
August 24, 2008 at 2:01 am
Well it might happen BBB – there are no insurance policies. Including doing the married with 2.4 children route. Whatever you do, life is a risk. No reason not to live it now. You can’t make yourself safe.
Yup. That’s what I tell myself when I start thinking that way. I remind myself that not only does aligning myself with a man offer NO GUARANTEES whatsoever, it will indeed make me more miserable (not to mention oppressed).
August 24, 2008 at 2:30 am
I get disappointed with radfem forums so quickly b/c it’s full of women who are toeing the patriarchy line, but they qualify as radfems because they “blame the patriarchy.” I want inspiration from women who are actually living like radfems, not just talking the talk, but actually walking the walk.
That’s because a lot of people claiming to be radical feminists, aren’t. A good many of them don’t even know what the word means. They just think it’s a really cool and hip label to call themselves. They don’t walk the walk or talk the talk. They just slap the label on themselves, blame the patriarchy once or twice, and think that’s all there is to it.
The real McCoys, however, can usually spot each other from a mile away. It’s sort of like gaydar. You just know. There does seem to be some common traits among most RFs. But I’m not going to give it away and say what they are. I think you already have a clue tho. Otherwise you wouldn’t be disenchanted with what you’re seeing from these supposed RF forums to begin with.
That aside, Radical Feminist theory is pretty solid and is difficult, at best, to refute. I think that’s why many trans, queers, pomos, and liberals chose the intangible route and the crying girl game. It’s because without it, they don’t have a leg to stand on. So they have to pretend everything is intangible and doesn’t exist. We’re all, apparently, a figment of their imagination.
Ok, so let’s play that game. Maybe it’s just them that doesn’t exist? The rest of us all do. So cool, we can pretty much ignore them now cuz they’re all a construct, don’t really exist and aren’t really there. 😛
All kidding aside, I’m curious. What do you think is talking the talk and walking the walk when it comes to radical feminism?
August 24, 2008 at 2:50 am
You mean “who”? Do you mean specific people, or just in general? Without embarrassing anybody or blaming anybody if they can’t, I’d say it’s lesbian and non-lesbian seperatists.
That must be a trick question though. Spill!
August 24, 2008 at 10:08 am
All kidding aside, I’m curious. What do you think is talking the talk and walking the walk when it comes to radical feminism?
Hmm, well I’d like to state firstly that I believe that there are some women (even in the West) who are in circumstances that they really and truly cannot change. So, I’m not blaming them for their problems. And I realize that most women are not feminists, let alone radical feminists, so they are unaware of the brainwashing that has happened to them. I’m not blaming them for their problems, either.
But I am starting to wonder if people can become addicted to righteous indignation. There are so many women (who ostensibly DO have choices and who have had their consciousness raised) who continue to do exactly what the patriarchy expects women to do. So, they go on radfem forums and mention something bad that happened to them, and their ONLY solution is saying that they blame the patriarchy for the existence of said problems.
This isn’t a real example, but it’s made up to be in the same style as the things I read on radfem boards. Someone will write about how her dentist makes her feel uncomfortable, like maybe he leers at her or says inappropriate things. Then she’ll say something like, “I blame the patriarchy that these males think they can leer at any woman they want.” Fair enough. Then other women respond with sympathetic clucking of their tongues and agree that it’s rough to be a woman in a patriarchy (which is true). But then when someone responds and says, “Why don’t you start seeing a female dentist?”, that’s when the fun starts. She’ll say, “I can’t go to anyone else. This guy has been my family’s dentist for 15 years.” And the whole time I’m reading this thread, I’m thinking WTF! I mean we’re not even talking about the hard and heavy stuff like finding a decent paying job to get oneself out from under financial dependency on Nigel, which is admittedly a damned difficult thing, depending on circumstances. We’re simply talking about switching dentists, and these people can’t even do that. Grrr.
I almost want to say that these people choose to continue to see the same old pervert dentist so they have something to commiserate with on a feminist forum. I mean, I don’t post often because I don’t have a whole lot of negative stuff to say. And out of politeness, I don’t interrupt a thread where people are bitching about Nigel to say, “Gee, I don’t have any problems at home, b/c I have enough sense not to have a man in my house.” I’m sure that would infuriate them just as much as it infuriates me to have them come into a thread and defend their fucking Nigel…the same Nigel they bitch about in all the other threads. But as soon as someone suggests going without men altogether, they flip out.
And lucky, what you said about the crying girl is true. I was posting on a forum about not having children. I can’t remember what it was in response to. Someone else posted that it wasn’t a solution because some women already had kids. WTF? And the population would die out if we didn’t make more babies. Oh, and she made a comment about radfems dismissing women with children. So, I responded that just b/c some women already had children doesn’t negate the fact that not having children is a solution for some women (and a very good one, I might add), and that despite whether or not someone already has children, the best thing we can do for women who haven’t yet done it is to tell them not to. In terms of getting along in a patriarchy, the less encumbered one is, the better…the more options she has. Dealing with men limits a woman’s options. Then I went on my typical rant about how the three worst things a woman can do are 1. marry a man, 2. make babies with a man, 3. be financially dependent on a man.
Well, right after that post came a response from a woman stating that she can’t read this thread anymore, she’s in tears, yadda, yadda. She has all three of those in her life, and she’s upset that someone told her it was a bad thing to do. One would think that a radical feminist should already know that those are bad things to do. Why call yourself a radfem if you’re going to be Patriarchy’s Handmaiden? And another commenter said that sometimes the patriarchy-approved choice is the right one for a woman. Grrr.
So, in order to keep this comment from getting to long. I’ll stop it here. I think you get the drift.
August 24, 2008 at 12:21 pm
It ranks right up there with “men hate you” in feminism 101, stuff everyone knows, or should have known, or we assumed they knew. Criminy.
I’m reading “Backlash” just now. She pretty clearly describes the procedure that created feminism as a life style instead of a political movement.
I think that is who many of these young women are.
August 24, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I think this must be a typo of some sort, because that sentence is saying you are having success, and it is that of which she disapproves. Or maybe she disapproves of your methods. The term stance throws me for a loop and I am too ignorant to know what she means. I need a grammar nazi to explain these things.
August 24, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Transgenderism has no unifing or foundational premise underlying any of their arguments, they are all different* and so I had been discussing that. Here’s what she says she meant:
“My stance, as repeated many times now, is that gender is a social construct, and that social constructs are real systems that people have to navigate.”
*all their arguments rest upon tears and tissues. If they tried to base their claim upon human rights it would become too obvious they are not wanting full humanity but special rights.
August 24, 2008 at 7:27 pm
That explains everything, eh? She thinks everyone should navigate their way through the shark infested waters of the patriarchy and stop trying to plot a new course, but most of all, STOP QUESTIONING THE MENZ.
August 24, 2008 at 8:49 pm
So, I responded that just b/c some women already had children doesn’t negate the fact that not having children is a solution for some women (and a very good one, I might add), and that despite whether or not someone already has children, the best thing we can do for women who haven’t yet done it is to tell them not to.
Children aren’t the problem. Men and their system are. Women’s autonomy is basic to feminism as well as a basic human right. Whether a woman wants to have children or not is a personal choice. It’s her body, her choice. Radical feminists have long fought for that choice for women.
That said, here’s the key to women’s freedom and independence:
“Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities; by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation.” — Emma Goldman
August 24, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Children aren’t the problem. Men and their system are.
Right. But as long as a woman is in the system, then having children is going to seriously curtail her freedoms and keep her dependent on either a man, or the system (i.e. the government dole).
Men know this, which is why they love to knock women up. Keeps ’em from running away as easily. And I can’t tell you how many women I know who are NEVER free from an abusive asshole, because they had a child with him. So, even though they get a divorce, the guy controls her via the child they have in common, and she’s always fighting with him and stressed out.
Women shouldn’t be raising children in that kind of atmosphere. It can’t be good for the children, either.
So, in the case of a woman who gets artificially inseminated, who has enough financial security to take care of her child herself, and whose female relatives pitch in with childcare, then that would be as close to ideal as one could get while still living within a patriarchy.
And all this, of course, is only taking into consideration the personal choice aspect of having children. We’re not taking into consideration that a woman will give birth to either a future victim of the patriarchy or a future perpetrator, and it’s not taking into consideration the other 6 billion humans overrunning the planet.
So, if we’re neglecting those other two aspects and just focusing on personal choice, then yeah, the best strategy IMO is to get artificially inseminated and don’t get a man involved in it.
August 24, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Oh, I forgot to mention that a one-night stand works about as well as (or probably better) than articifical insemination. Plus, it’s cheaper.
August 25, 2008 at 2:57 am
Yeah rape and sexual abuse are real systems that people have to navigate as well. Does that mean they’re good?
Racism is a real system which insists that people with certain skin colours are genetically inferior. Does that mean the Ku Klux Klan are justified?
Bad thing exists: – does not mean that supporting bad thing is justified.
August 25, 2008 at 2:58 am
BBB – I concur.
August 25, 2008 at 6:04 am
Slightly unrelated thing on the population. I was reading a Bill Bryson (sorry if you don’t know who he is) book written in like 1999 or around there and he said something about how the world’s population was 5 billion. We’ve added another billion and a half since 1999! Screams in terror. There goes the neighborhood, and the planet.
August 25, 2008 at 8:23 am
…and it’s not taking into consideration the other 6 billion humans overrunning the planet.
Do you know that the entire population of the U.S. could live in a single county in Michigan? Do you know the average person spends most of their life in only 15 square feet of space? The idea that the earth is over-populated is a complete farce. What the problem is, is that 10% of the population owns and controls 90% of the resources. There’s the problem. Not over-population or not enough space or resources.
Slightly unrelated thing on the population. I was reading a Bill Bryson (sorry if you don’t know who he is) book written in like 1999 or around there and he said something about how the world’s population was 5 billion. We’ve added another billion and a half since 1999! Screams in terror. There goes the neighborhood, and the planet.
There’s also about 200 billion ants on the planet. Is the planet becoming over-populated and over-run with ants?
Man is full of himself. He spends a good portion of his time trying to convince women and himself how significant he is. But the earth existed long before he ever did, and will exist long after he is dead and gone. So, no worries. The planet isn’t in any danger. Can’t say the same for man. All the earth need do is shudder. She could shake the entire human race off of her in a blink of an eye.
August 25, 2008 at 9:31 am
Do you know that the entire population of the U.S. could live in a single county in Michigan? Do you know the average person spends most of their life in only 15 square feet of space? The idea that the earth is over-populated is a complete farce.
Sorry, I’m not taking the bait.
August 26, 2008 at 4:17 am
Sorry, I’m not taking the bait.
Well, I wouldn’t want to mess your head up with facts or ruin all that propaganda that has been fed into the machine. We’ll just pretend that 10% of the world doesn’t own the other 90% and instead, just blame mothers, for the lack of resources and the world’s woes. I understand. It’s so much safer to kick the master’s dog than it is to kick the master.
We’ll also pretend that everyone in the world lives The Great White Way, in nuclear family units, so that what you say above about women and children holds true, k? Wouldn’t want to suggest to white folks that there are other living alternatives. Where men can be held in check and women do a fraction of the work that most white women do today; where violence and abuse is virtually non-existent, and near equality between the sexes can be achieved. Forgive me. I forgot that The Great White Way is the only way and there can be no other.
August 26, 2008 at 7:58 am
I’ve lurked around the blogosphere enough to know that you enjoy being contentious, even with people on the same side as you. You can imply that I said things I didn’t say, but I’m still not taking the bait.
August 26, 2008 at 9:03 am
I’ve lurked around the blogosphere enough to know that you enjoy being contentious, even with people on the same side as you.
WTF?
I’m really not interested in your cliques and their gossip, BBB. Let’s pretend we’re not in middle school and all grown up now and stick to the issues, k?
I contend the world is not over-populated and there’s plenty of land and resources to go around. But 10% control the resources and deprive the other 90% of them.
I contend that the oppression and the terrorism of women begins at home, and the nuclear family plays a key role in that and breeds male supremacy. But alternate family structures can achieve just the opposite. This is the problem, not women having children.
I contend that autonomy is key to women’s freedom and liberation and is basic to feminism. Pressuring women to not have children is just as anti-feminist as pressuring women to have children. Plain and simple, it’s woman-hating and woman-blaming. And really not much different than telling slaves that their oppression would end if they’d just stop having babies.
Now I know men have power and privilege and there are many women that are envious of that and all, but the goal of feminism is not for women to become more like men. As Ms. Lorde put it, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
August 26, 2008 at 4:24 pm
But I am starting to wonder if people can become addicted to righteous indignation.
I’m sure we can. We have done. It’s everywhere. Maybe it’s a design flaw?
People can be adrenalin junkies.
Maybe only when final and ultimate exhaustion kicks in do we realize that maybe there could have been some other way.
August 26, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Ha, that’s what I’ve been thinking for a while now, Mary. Finally bothered to remember what the negotiators recommend: speak in a low voice to an angry person and they tend to realize that they’re screaming. Doesn’t work for manipulators though, that’s a different problem.
Lucky, not to say that the available desirable land and available resources couldn’t be stretched any thinner, but there’s something to be said for quality of life. When we have to ration water because the aquifers are running dry, that’s kinda enough for me.
August 27, 2008 at 10:13 am
But I am starting to wonder if people can become addicted to righteous indignation.
A million day time talk shows are the proof of that surely? How DARE you infringe my RIGHTS!
Re professional victimhood, I’m with you BBB.
August 27, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Re professional victimhood, I’m with you BBB.
This kind of statement bothers me. I often hear it among people who want to be seen as self-actualizing individuals, incapable of being swayed by others. But I find this dismissal of women’s true status in society to be counterproductive and, ultimately, restrictive rather than empowering.
In order for women to viably argue that social change must be made, they must convince their colleagues that power disparities do indeed exist and have affected women negatively. In other words, women must explain that this society has vitimized them and, in order to rectify that problem, full equality on women’s terms must be implemented. Being a victim in this sense does not mean one purposely placed oneself at the mercy of the victimizer. It means one has been afforded less than another by virtue of one’s sex. Being victimized is not the fault of the victim, as the above statement suggests. And preventing victimization involves much more than simply claiming a woman can control how others treat her and her female image on a societal level.
If women are in no way victims of a patriarchal society, then feminism would be moot. But most posters here recognize that such is not the case. So I take issue with the idea that women as “victims” somehow renders them powerless. It is the very recognition that women are victims which raises their consciousnesses and inspires them to fight for equal treatment and full respect for fundamental liberties of importance to them. In other words, realizing that one is a victim of prejudice and subordination is a necessary step towards empowerment. To deny it altogether is to hand that power back to the victimizer in spades. Empower.
August 27, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I agree with you, Lucky. Women are certainly victims of the patriarchy. And I realize that whatever freedoms we do have are at the discretion of the menz. If they wanted to take away our right to vote, they would do it. I think street harassment is another way men tell us, “We’re LETTING you walk around freely out of doors. We could take that away at any minute.”
I think it’s important that women recognize all the ways in which they are victims and victimized.
However, I do think that there are ways to get some freedom from men and their influence. And I want to know about them and help spread the word of them, and I love to hear stories of how women are living radically. What bothers me, though, is when women who call themselves feminists or even radical feminists, which would imply having their consciousnesses raised to some degree, won’t take even simple actions, and seem to prefer to commiserate with others over their lot in patriarchy.
A: “My hairdresser charges more for a woman’s haircut than a man’s.”
B: “Change hairdressers.”
A: “I can’t. But I can blame the patriarchy that my hairdresser charges women more.”
A: “My neighbor groped me.”
B: “Tell the landlord.” “Move.” “Punch him next time he does it.” “Carry pepper spray.”
A: “I can’t. The patriarchy sucks.”
I agree that we shouldn’t deny that women are victims. People who say that women aren’t second class citizens anymore, or that feminism solved all the problems aren’t helping the situation.
But when there is some wiggle room, I’d like to see women take the action. I become frustrated when I see women choosing to simply bitch about how bad the patriarchy is while not taking any action to ameliorate their circumstances. And I do realize there is a fine line between expressing dismay that a woman is not taking action that is available to her and blaming the victim. I have to be careful of that, because I’m sure I have crossed that line. I have to be vigilant about it
August 27, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I want to add to my previous comment. This just came to me as I was walking to the store earlier.
I think part of the reason some women don’t act on some of the more radical things (and even far less radical things) is from a mistaken belief that the women who DO do the radical things somehow don’t face the same consequences they do. For example, they may think that women who don’t shave just happen to be less hairy than they are, or their leg hair is lighter, or they don’t wear skirts or work in an office, or whatever. They may think that certain behavior is only for lesbian separatists, not straight women or something. Or a woman who chooses to be alone must make a lot more money than they do, etc.
I think it’s the same thing at work with feminism in general. Women are brainwashed to think that their problems are all just personal problems, and that they are the only ones experiencing X, and all other women have it easy.
August 28, 2008 at 1:11 am
Fucking brilliant. My sister is always whinging on at me for the crime of not being married with children, and just going round wifully enjoying myself, and ignores the fact that she’s got far more money than me, has a much bigger house, car, (which I can’t afford) loads of holidays (which I can’t afford) than me because I don’t have a man to boost my income.
You make a pact with the devil, you suffer the consequences as far as I’m concerned.
August 28, 2008 at 1:14 am
But it’s much easier to whinge and be a victim than take responsibility for your own behaviour of course, and face the fact that you might have contributed to the mess you’re in yourself.
August 28, 2008 at 4:38 am
You make a pact with the devil, you suffer the consequences as far as I’m concerned.
I am very interested in talking more about this. Please email me, if you are also interested.
August 28, 2008 at 8:57 am
I might write about it when I’m done with writing about child abuse cover ups. But the basic idea is simple – if you’re getting the benefits of colluding with patriarchy, it seems to me to be somewhat hypocritical to also complain about the downsides.
You can’t simultaneously support (when it benefits your) and oppose (when it doesn’t benefit you) the same thing. Makes sense to me
August 28, 2008 at 11:29 am
Yes, well, I don’t know where you blog.
Besides that, it isn’t the general notion of hypocrisy I wanted to discuss. I am quite able to grasp that on my own. What I would have been interested in discussing is the scope of such a belief. If, for example, a woman derives the social benefit of interacting with men, is she then a hypocrite for complaining about having been raped by the men with whom she chose to surround herself, for the social capital it brought? Rape, after all, has long been a consequence of dealing with men.
In any event, I most certainly will not be having that conversation here, of all places, so email if you’re interested, and if not, take care.
August 28, 2008 at 3:45 pm
oh that reminds me, I’m being measured for my hood later.
My paint program has 256 shades of grey and if I push a button, I get a few million — way too many to choose from. I’ll stick to black and white, that way I can think just like everybody else.
August 28, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Well a woman can be raped without the social benefit of interacting with men. I don’t choose to interact with men but I’ve been sexually assaulted. One is not a consequence of the other. But if you’re deriving the social benefits of being married, and have chosen to be married, it’s hypocritical to whinge at lesbians because they don’t have to deal with men.
Anyway I don’t do one to one conversations on demand.
August 28, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Polly Styrene, that would have been the point of the “if you’re interested” part. I never shall, for the life of me, understand what thrill it is people must get out of mischaracterizing my requests as demands. I suppose one seems like more of a “rebel” if one can be said to be standing up to authority, rather than merely turning down an invitation.
mAndrea, your quip is exactly the reason why I’d never have a conversation here. And it also solidifies my suspicion as to the benignity of your having contacted me the other day. I can’t say that I understand any more why you, of the newly refitted hood, would contact me, but I’m glad to know I was right in being wary.
August 28, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I’d like to say that I really like and admire the radfems I’ve come to know from forums and blogs. I don’t agree 100% with everything everyone writes, but everyone has their moments of sheer brilliance.
Sometimes I read blog posts or comments that seem to reference a person/blog/forum that I don’t read. Sometimes I’m lost and confused when reading, but no matter. It is clear to me that there are some issues, either recent or long-standing between people. Sometimes I know what they are, most of the time I don’t.
But I do want to reiterate that I am fond of everyone. Even people I get snippy with. I like all the radfems who comment here and at other blogs I read regularly. So, I am not choosing sides.
But I feel I must say something about this comment:
oh that reminds me, I’m being measured for my hood later.
mAndrea, I think that is really innappropriate and not cool. I think I understand your intention. I believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that your intention was to let your readership know that Justice Walks won’t comment here because she thinks you are racist. But I feel your choice of words was in poor taste. You could’ve said simply, “Yeah, JW doesn’t want to comment here because she thinks I’m racist.”
August 28, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Sometimes, BBB, the absurd is all we have left when faced repeatedly with the racist by association smear.
August 29, 2008 at 12:01 pm
One film clip is not enough to critique an entire genre. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has morphed into The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so while the cinematic performance is highly respected, popcorn still gets thrown at the screen. Been meaning to clean up the mess after the last intermission, but the few people in the audience simply move to different seats.
August 29, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Well y’know I’m just cynical…… sue me.
Oh and apparently I’m not nice either. Oh noes!
August 29, 2008 at 4:09 pm
(I’ll start being nice when the world’s nice)……………………
August 29, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Just for clarification for any nosy parkers. Amy walks into a thread with a brilliant comment, however, she starts off by saying “I loath posting here”. This is not worth responding to because the rest of her comment was so good and no hard feelings. However, dipshit sees this and thinks dipshit gets to do the same thing, except dipshit doesn’t realize that the rest of dipshit’s comment is merely an order for someone to email her privately.
Since dipshit already thinks I am a racist fuck because I said the word “brownish” once and there ever after equates me with the KKK, hence my comment about the hood and a million shades of grey.
Fuck off Justice, you’re insane not to mention petty as hell. And my masterbating your ego is limited to this little blowjob. Being black does not give you a pass to act like a fucking fool, nor does that entail I become your doormat.
Outrage porn — rent and return, I did.
http://walkwithjustice.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/disrespect/ There’s your linky, enjoy sucking on it.
August 30, 2008 at 3:25 am
Also justice walks assumes I know her e-mail????????????????????????????????????
Disrespect cuts both ways.
August 30, 2008 at 5:10 am
We all know the “hood” comment was a racist remark, mAndrea. No excuses now.
Pollys says:
You make a pact with the devil, you suffer the consequences as far as I’m concerned.
Wouldn’t this then make you the devil’s spawn? Or were you made in a test tube? Doubtful, so I’m going to have to assume you have both a mother and a father? Who are more than likely, het? So what are you saying? Your mother should’ve kicked your father to the curb and aborted you? And you shouldn’t exist, much less be here, boring us with your misogyny, stupidity and nonsense?
So, were you born on a desert island? And totally self-sustaining? No? Then who do you work for? Who pays your paycheck? Who do you rent from or pay a mortgage to? I assume you don’t live by candlelight or use an outhouse or communicate by smoke signals. So who do you get your utilities from? Do you have a car? Or use public transportation? Who do you buy it from? I also assume you’re not a farmer and also don’t make your own clothes and shoes. So where do you get your food from? Who do you buy your clothes and shoes from? Did you not receive an education? Who educated you? Whose schools did you go to? Who published and wrote a good portion of those books you’ve read? Who made your computer? How are you posting here?
I could go on and on, but I think you catch my drift. The answer to all is The Man, in one way or another. You see, we all make deals with the devil in order to survive. So what are you saying? That your pacts with the devil are a-ok? Wouldn’t this make you a bit of a hypocrite? In essence, scapegoating mothers and trying to kick them down the ladder to divert attention from your own deals with the devil and make them seem less transgressive?
August 30, 2008 at 8:37 am
Is there a full moon? I’ve been thinking there’s been one all month.
August 30, 2008 at 11:03 am
(unrelated) Oh, the full moon? It’s only the patriarchy showing its fetid ass. C’mon boys, pull up your pants!
(related, directed to Luckynkl) You know, just because we have our origins by certain method and would not exist without them doesn’t mean those methods were good and do not cause us sorrow. As an American white woman I know that if Christopher Columbus had never crossed the Atlantic and never committed genocide and rape against the women he found here then I would not exist. Also, I can guess with some certainty that many of my ancestors probably were the product of rape. These two things are awful and bad, and gee most of the time I still want to be alive. We might be devil’s spawn, but that doesn’t mean we can’t turn around and point fingers. That doesn’t mean we can’t say “This shit stops with me.”
Like you were saying with the issues of modern survival, sometimes we don’t have that choice. Sometimes we do. But I would also say that as a white woman the most powerful impact I can make (besides the social justice/environmental/radical feminist work I plan to do after graduation) is to not burden the universe with one more god damned white man (I think acknowledgment for this concept is owed to Justice Walks).
I don’t mean to be combative, these are just thoughts.
August 30, 2008 at 11:19 am
I think I’ve been asleep or maybe drunk. (well ok I knooooooow I’ve been both of those things several times this week, sometimes simultaneously). Because it appears that somebody died and Americans on the internet have been put in charge of my life. And nobody told me……………..
That’ll teach me not to binge drink.
August 30, 2008 at 11:45 am
Oh but FYI I do suffer the consequences of having a job. It’s called having to go to work five days a week. Y’know? And in return they pay me?
Obviously not everyone has a job though… cos they seem to think I can just spend my entire life pissing about on t’internetz…….
August 30, 2008 at 11:46 am
Polly, Americans on the internet are a frightening thing. Maybe you should get a more sekriter 😉 blog and only tell UK people about it.
August 30, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Americans on the internet are a frightening thing.
You are aware that America invented the internet, right? The internet is brought to you courtesy of the U.S. Dept of Defense and has been around since the end of WWII.
I plan to do after graduation) is to not burden the universe with one more god damned white man (I think acknowledgment for this concept is owed to Justice Walks).
Actually, this concept was around long before JW was even a gleam in her daddy’s eye. I, myself, was saying it while JW was still in diapers. In fact, I’m rather notorious for it. JW picked the idea up from me. Except JW wanted to be exclusionary and only apply it to white boys. No doubt because moc have such a good track record with women. **roll eyes** But guess what? The concept was around long before I was a gleam in my daddy’s eye too. It’s been around probably as long as the patriarchy has.
But by jove, one of you finally got it! Better late than never, I suppose. But that’s what I’ve been waiting to hear. For a woman to decide not to bring another male into this world. Not children, mind you. Males! Why in the world are we producing our own oppressors? Sure, they’re all cute and cuddly when they’re little. So are tiger cubs. Then they grow up and eat you!
The Amazons tried to practice this, as best they could. Their society was female only. But of course they had to have children if their society was to continue. So they visited a village of males to get with child. I guess they must’ve had some kind of agreement. If they birthed a female child, the Amazons kept her. If they birthed a male child, they gave it back to the father.
Sounds like a great idea, no? Except those male children eventually grew up and conquered the Amazons. So obviously this concept has to be taken even further. And in this technological age, pre-sex selection is a reality. My doctors gave me the recipe for pre-sex selection over 25 years ago. So it’s been around for some time now. No medical intervention, meds or tools are required. It can be done right at home. The simple method is 98% accurate. Not bad, huh? So why not use it?
BTW, 70% of American women have no interest in marriage or babies. Not now. Not ever. So I’m not sure what y’all are going on about. We’re way ahead of you. Why do you think American males have panicked and declared war on women’s reproductive rights? They’re terrified! Women got out of the box during the 60’s and 70’s and the boys have been frantically trying to pull out all stops to stuff us back in ever since.
And just what do you think is going to happen when UK women decide to follow in suit? All I can say is, be prepared. Because the Handmaid’s Tale isn’t too far off. And it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
August 31, 2008 at 12:22 am
“”Americans on the internet are a frightening thing.
You are aware that America invented the internet, right? The internet is brought to you courtesy of the U.S. Dept of Defense and has been around since the end of WWII. “”
Sheesh, I was joking, making fun of myself. I’m American, and I’m currently *in* America.
August 31, 2008 at 5:52 am
Sheesh, I was joking, making fun of myself. I’m American, and I’m currently *in* America.
That’s what you got out of that whole comment I posted? It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It doesn’t change anything I wrote. But I’m glad you can poke fun of yourself. Humor is good. But the internet is a poor medium for it.
August 31, 2008 at 8:44 am
“That’s what you got out of that whole comment I posted?”
Well no, but I had other things to do and I couldn’t really tell if the second half of the comment was even directed towards me. And your commenting style might be in good faith but when I read things like this:
“But by jove, one of you finally got it! ”
“BTW, 70% of American women have no interest in marriage or babies. Not now. Not ever. So I’m not sure what y’all are going on about. We’re way ahead of you”
I feel insulted and intimidated, even if I wasn’t included in the ”y’all”. I already have more than my fair share of insults and intimidation in real life, and I’m pretty much a wimp, so no I wasn’t interested in responding to the rest.
August 31, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I’m shutting down comments for awhile. I will continue to post.
August 31, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Well you’re the one defined the internet OGodlessOne. Play ball or take the bench.
August 31, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I am still looking for an explanation by what you, mAndrea, a self-described radical feminist, would mean when you called women who are triggered by abusive behaviour “doormats”.
August 31, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Ne Che, I obviously need to implement a moderation policy. Amazingly enough, I detest playing mamma to grown adults, especially those grown adults who post here frequently. or used to anyway. lol
So anyway, everybody’s in mod as if they are two years old. Suppose this will eliminate the individuals who merely show up with an old grudge or those whose only purpose is to attack anyone else.
[edit]I wanted to discuss my issue with justice privately, but she has always preferred public masterbation. The only reason I attemped a private conversation a while back was because once again she couldn’t leave me out of her mess. Really not sure why she would refuse to discuss something privately and then show up here to sling insults.
August 31, 2008 at 5:44 pm
The Rebecca West quote is, I think, appropriate here.
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”
August 31, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Do you plan to answer my question? I think it’s kind of important for the radical feminists who post and read here to know why you’ve called women who are triggered by abusive behaviour (to remember, of course, instances when they were raped, battered, and abused) “doormats”.
“Thorry”? I’m not sure who this refers to. But I’ve only posted here, I think, four times now, so if this refers to me, or some other poster, don’t know.
August 31, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I’m sorry Ne Che I forgot. A “doormat” is a general purpose insult and a personal favorite. It means, among other things, someone who is manipulative and cries that they will be “triggered” if they don’t get their way.
Naggy bullshit would also qualify. You can be a very nice person, Ne Che, as I can be. But it never fails to amaze how oftentimes my very long suffering patience is mistaken to resemble a doormat. It confuses people when I set it on fire and they’re still standing on it.
August 31, 2008 at 6:55 pm
What do you mean when you call women who are triggered by abuse “doormats”?
September 1, 2008 at 5:03 am
I feel insulted and intimidated, even if I wasn’t included in the ”y’all”. I already have more than my fair share of insults and intimidation in real life, and I’m pretty much a wimp, so no I wasn’t interested in responding to the rest.
Actually, I was complimenting you. And the “y’all” is the general you. I’m sorry if you’re frightened by compliments and find them intimidating. I find that as puzzling as I find this comment by BBB:
I’ve lurked around the blogosphere enough to know that you enjoy being contentious, even with people on the same side as you.
See, I don’t blog. I’m not particularly fond of the format. So there’s very few blogs I read, and even fewer I comment on. MAndrea’s blog, is in fact, the only blog I’ve been half-way active on in quite some time.
Obviously there’s something more going on here than meets the eye. But given recent developments, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what.
September 1, 2008 at 8:35 am
I’m not seeing where Miss Andrea called someone a doormat. She said that she, Miss Andrea, was being treated like a doormat. What am I not seeing.
September 1, 2008 at 10:41 am
Obviously there’s something more going on here than meets the eye. But given recent developments, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what.”
+
“I’m not seeing where Miss Andrea called someone a doormat. She said that she, Miss Andrea, was being treated like a doormat. What am I not seeing.”
= private shit which should have been handled privately, but noooooooooooooo. And I will not allow dumbass rumors about me to circulate without defending myself and crushing that shit into the ground. Thorry! I have said things I do regret, sarcasm here and plain old fury elsewhere, but amazingly enough I am not going to apologize for reacting in anger to bullshit when no one bothers to apologize for THEIR bullshit which CREATED the situation in the first place.
This is yet the same old situation which I have written about in the past: vanilla girl does something stupid or manipulative, other people don’t like it, and the vanilla girl cries about her hurt fweelings. She changes the focus from her behavior, to those who react badly to her behavior. No, let’s talk about original cause.
There are several different conflicts being played out here, which is why I think there’s a full moon. But in addition to the people trying to change the focus from their behavior to my anger at their behavior, at least SIX individuals have contacted me privately to say that they do not enjoy watching someone be attacked, instead of their ideas. They are not going to post here until this stops. Really I think it’s a word choice problem, but they still have a point.
And it’s not neccesary to “attack” ideas at all, respectful disagreement is entirely possible. Let’s remember what the purpose of this blog is right now: transgenderism, and how that intersects with gender, women’s liberation, and of course how bad men suck. All these personality conflicts merely detracts from that, and I really resent the hell out of behavior which only minimizes and distracts from the purpose.
September 2, 2008 at 9:41 am
I find that as puzzling as I find this comment by BBB:
“I’ve lurked around the blogosphere enough to know that you enjoy being contentious, even with people on the same side as you.”
See, I don’t blog. I’m not particularly fond of the format. So there’s very few blogs I read, and even fewer I comment on. MAndrea’s blog, is in fact, the only blog I’ve been half-way active on in quite some time.
Obviously there’s something more going on here than meets the eye.
Well, I can’t speak for anyone else except myself. I have seen comments you’ve left on this blog over the last several months. Some of them have been brilliant. I’ve googled your name a few times to see if you had a blog or something because I like most of what you say. So, in googling you, I found some other blogs and forums where you’ve left comments. Some of them are brilliant, but some of them are downright mean and/or nuts, and so I can only guess that occasionally like to troll or stir things up. It’s either that or you have multiple personalities or something. 🙂
I like you, Lucky. I like what you say, but I don’t like snark. I think even radfems can disagree on issues (like having children), but there’s no reason to goad people into speaking their mind, only to get snarky with them.
So, that’s where I was coming from. It had nothing to do with any behind the scenes gossiping which you alluded to in an earlier comment. It’s all me. Just stuff I’ve witnessed.
September 2, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Does a comment in a public space need to be transfered to a private space?
Just had the bizaar experience of reading Justice Walks attack on this blog, and it is a surreal experience.
Justice Walks for her consistent meanness, and mAndrea for a kind of gratuitous “humor” — hoods and such that is truly awful as well.
Ah the Internet and all its weirdness, ya gotta love it.
September 2, 2008 at 4:50 pm
P.S. Guess you did remove Justice Walks from this blog roll. Good idea, since there was no love lost there.
September 3, 2008 at 10:51 am
Irony and hyperbole are my trademarks and I’ve been on the internet for 35 years so there’s no telling what you came up with. Just keep in mind the lack of context, history and relationships you won’t be privy to tho when you do google people. So what may seem mean or nuts to you may make perfect sense to others, especially those involved in the post at the time.
As a rule, I don’t google people, but just for grins, I googled myself to see what you may have been looking at. Damn, I had no idea people had so much to say, lol. Oh well, if they were looking for my attention, I missed it.
I make no excuses for what I say. If I said it, I said it. No, I probably don’t walk like you, talk like you, act like you or look like you, or anyone else for that matter. Probably cuz I’m me and I can’t be anything else but that. I make no apologies for who I am, what I think, or how I express myself. I can’t change my signature or style of handwriting any more than you can change yours, nor do I want to. It’s what makes me uniquely me.
That said, yeah, I like you too. Even when I disagree with and get snarky with you. 😛
September 3, 2008 at 2:28 pm
That’s nice Lucky, but under normal circumstances it’s not necessary to attack the person when mere disagreement with the idea will suffice. So any comments which go beyond disagreeing with the idea will be deleted.
I put that “under normal circumstances” in there because frankly, it’s not possible to ban myself from my own blog.
And Trumpet, the original comment was private. Someone else refused to discuss it privately and in the meantime continued to make disparaging comments about myself elsewhere. Any support of WOC which I would have liked to give for the last six months would be naturally seen as hypocritical propaganda under that condition, and I’m sick of that too, as I’ve noticed a lot of racist crap I’d like to mention in the comments.
Bablefish has NOT ONE african language. not one. There’s like 10 chinese to choose from. It’s minor, but still. And I found this page, and it’s awesome.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8267.html
October 5, 2008 at 7:15 am
Oh dear I see that not showing enough emotion is a grounds for criticism from certain parties now. You see it’s not enough to recant. You have to be truly, truly thorry. And shed some tears, natch.
I think I’ll just not bother if it’s all the same to you.
October 5, 2008 at 11:09 am
Before I ever starting commenting over there, I checked out some of the other posts and links, including the one you included here, Polly. Supposedly Luralhel is a seperate person, and not just a sock puppet account of Tig, but I couldn’t find anything she had written which didn’t sound like Tig having a hissy fit.
There is no logic in supporting transgenderism, especially if one claims to be a feminist. Apologies for sounding like a know-it-all on this one subject, but what bothers me the most is that so many people apparently lack the ability to reason. It all stems from the same place, though: denial. People don’t want to acknowledge how pervasive sexism actually is, or how deeply we are brainwashed to protect the men from accountability, for then we would have to confront some very difficult questions about the nature of OURSELVES. A spine is required, and most people don’t seem to have that either.
A few radical feminists can elucidate and delineate the justifications masquerading as reasons all day long, but we cannot help with a spinal transfusion. Without a spine, it doesn’t matter if anyone comprehends those justifications or not; for without a spine to act upon the knowledge that we do have, no change can take place. There is zero point to my writing another line about transgenderism.
It is time to discuss something else. Something evil.
October 5, 2008 at 3:03 pm
That was probably rude and devisive. I’m angry at women for not being angry at men. bleck and blahblech.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/03/nailin-paylin-hustlers-pa_n_131581.html is pissing me off more by the minute. Six pages of sexism apologetia.
October 5, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Re: Larry Flynt–he really stretches the limits of worthlessness one can achieve in a lifetime. Oooo all the liberal boyz will be lurvin’ this! The Left is one endless boner. I can’t believe I once identified as Left. I am Front.
Were I Palin I would feel so fucking violated.
m Andrea please do a post on this and turn Mr.Flyck into a pile of rubble!
October 5, 2008 at 10:14 pm
There is zero point to my writing another line about transgenderism.
It is time to discuss something else. Something evil.
Great. I will read anything you write, cuz you’re The Awesomeness, but I gotta say, I’m sick to death of men with mental illnesses and silly putty genitals. If we ignore them, we might get lucky and they’ll just disappear. Wishful thinking, I know.
October 8, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Oh I’m sure you already had read it M Andrea. It’s just that it amused me so much I had to share it with a wider audience.
October 9, 2008 at 3:00 pm
silly putty genitals
Hah!
Yes rather. Could it be that patriarchy is sooo obsessed about genitals that it dictates a whole set of attributes to the person with one configuration or other of these genitals? It’s as if genitals have Super Magic Powers, instead of just bits of skin etc.
I am now off to the butcher’s to buy me some sausages. Strap one on, and see how superior and empowerfulness I become. News at 10.