Anybody wanna explain to me what the hell is going on with online feminism?
So here’s the deal: I don’t read other feminist blogs unless they’re in my blogroll feed thingy and the article looks interesting. Which means I occasionally read something at Twisty’s or Echidne’s or Egalia’s — you get the drift. But I don’t keep up with the general feminist blogowhateverthefuck because, People’s Front of Judea.
Anyway, today I’m looking at my WordPress Dashboard and notice unusual trackbacks to my blog. One is from a guy named Angus Johnson; turns out he linked to me in the course of analyzing some unbelievably godawful shit Hugo Schwyzer has got up to. And I do mean godawful. The turtleneck-wearing youth pastor thing has always creeped me the fuck out, but you gotta read this post by Angus to appreciate the extent to which every bad vibe anybody ever got from Hugo has been validated.
That’s not the reason for my question though. There was another unusual trackback today, and this one was from Feministe. This surprised me because I stopped linking to Feministe around the time they started featuring acknowledged anti-feminists as guest bloggers, and they stopped linking to me at the same time. So I was curious to see what prompted the trackback. I go to the thread, and whaddya know, it’s more on this godawful Hugo Schwyzer thing; one of the commenters had linked to the same old Reclusive Leftist post about Hugo that Angus linked to. Clearly the Hugo Situation is the topic du jour. But here’s the weird part: I start reading through this comment thread at Feministe, wondering who these people are (Clarisse? not that Clarisse, some other freaky Clarisse), and before long the thread has stopped being about Hugo and is about how evil radical feminists are. This is a feminist blog, and they’re talking about how feminism is a blight on civilization. Like this:
Radical feminists give cover to rapists of transwomen; they give cover to bashers of transwomen; I would argue that they give cover to rapists of sex workers by refusing to let those women make their own distinctions between rape and sex-for-money.
And more on that theme, with many people “cosigning” (snort) and agreeing that radical feminists are simply the worst threat to womankind on earth. What the hell? I could have fucking SWORN it was patriarchy that was killing women and that radical feminism was the movement to OPPOSE that shit, but what do I know. I’m just an old radical feminist.
Now, look, I realize that pro-pornography/pro-prostitution feminists can get upset with radicals who challenge that shit, but talking about radfems as if they’re actually the ones doing the oppressing and raping? As for the trans issue, for chrissake, people. Radical feminism does not equal transphobia. Being “anti-trans” is not some built-in feature or policy position of radical feminism. The first time I saw that meme it was in a bullshit cartoon by Barry the Pornographer (Ampersand), apparently deciding in his manly wisdom to redefine the whole of radical feminism in light of some online assholes. And now this shit has migrated. What the fuck, people, what the fuck?
28 Responses to “Anybody wanna explain to me what the hell is going on with online feminism?”
-
Three Wickets says:
If I were a woman, I wouldn’t outsource my feminism to narcissistic “progressive” men, but that’s just me.
January 6th, 2012 at 7:25 am EST -
Nell says:
My first exposure to Hugo Schwyzer was your post responding to his “feminism is a cold pool” remarks.
It was I who linked to it on the Feministe thread. (I think it was the first time I’ve ever commented there.)
That comment thread quickly deteriorated into a feminist circular firing squad. No wonder we never make any progress.
-
tallbacka says:
Hugo is completely nuts but Twisty is not much better. The less said about any of them the better.
-
womanistmusings says:
Being “anti-trans” is not some built-in feature or policy position of radical feminism.
I understand the point you are making and I think that you are ignoring the long history of transphobia engaged in by radical feminism. Mich fest anyone? I think that you have to acknowledge a problem before you can fix it. It’s one thing to say that the brand of radical feminism that I practice does not include this sort of thinking and another to deny the well documented history.
-
anna says:
“acknowledged anti-feminists as guest bloggers”
Really?! Who?
-
Violet Socks says:
I think that you are ignoring the long history of transphobia engaged in by radical feminism. Mich fest anyone?
Mich Fest? Where they spell women “womyn”? Mich Fest, the lesbian separatist camp? Are you kidding me? So now radical feminism = Mich Fest? That is frankly the same move that wingnuts use when they point out that certain feminists were/are Marxists, ergo, feminism = Marxism. Or when they point out that one feminist was Valerie Solanas, ergo, feminism = shooting Andy Warhol.
Or how about this: some liberal feminists were deeply homophobic, ergo, liberal feminism = homophobia. Or: some “sex-positive” feminists have been heavily implicated in the online and offline harassment of anti-porn activists, ergo, “sex-positive” feminism = harassment.
See how that works?
I think that you have to acknowledge a problem before you can fix it.
I agree. And here’s the problem: people redefining the largest, most important feminist movement in history in terms of a few assholes.
Look, radical feminism is a broad movement to deconstruct and confront deep structure patriarchy on a fundamental level. That’s not my “brand” of radical feminism; that is radical feminism.
-
anna says:
Any radical feminist blogs (besides yours) you would recommend, Violet?
-
Violet Socks says:
And another thing about fixing a problem:
The handful of anti-trans assholes online are the same assholes who have been online since online feminism started. I know them by name, as does everybody else. They’re banned here. They’re banned at Twisty’s. They were banned at the IBTP forum, the largest radical feminist space online, when I was a moderator there. You know why? Because they’re trolls. This isn’t some large growing contingent of “radical feminism” that has to be dealt with; this is the same 5 or 6 people who have been obsessing online about transgenderism for years.
So please, explain to me why these trolls are banned at radical feminist blogs because they’re fucking nutjobs, but people like you treat them as if they’re the spokeswomen and representatives of all radical feminism? What the fuck? This is like revising the Standard Model of physics based on YouTube comments.
-
tinfoil hattie says:
Twisty is emphatically NOT transphobic, nor is she “anti-trans.” Violet is correct. That language, and those people who have espoused such hateful beliefs are BANNED at Twisty’s.
So I would heartily recommend IBTP. That, and RL, are my feminist blogs of choice. I sometimes argue at Feministe, but it’s not a very feminist blog. Any feminist blog doing, “Yes, but … he’s so FUNNY!” about Bill fucking Maher, for god’s sake, is a problem to feminism.
RADICAL FEMINISM DOES NOT EQUAL TRANSPHOBIA. Nor does it equal HATING MEN or HATING SEX. Hell, some radical feminists are EVEN MARRIED TO MEN, AND WE HAVE GREAT SEX WITH THEM!
Also: Just because a blog calls itself “Radfemhub” does not make it representative of radical feminism. Remember, Fox News calls itself “fair and balanced.”
-
ruskii says:
This is exactly why I stick to this blog and Twisty, and occasionally Echidne. I don’t even try to find people near my age (early 20s) who identify as feminists, let alone radical feminists–it’s hard enough to even find (genuine, good) radical feminist blogs online.
Thanks, by the way.-longtime lurker, would rather listen and learn than comment.
-
tinfoil hattie says:
This is like revising the Standard Model of physics based on YouTube comments.
Best laugh I’ve had all week, BTW.
-
Violet Socks says:
anna, you asked two questions:
“acknowledged anti-feminists as guest bloggers”
Really?! Who?
I cannot say her name or she might appear. It’s like Beetlejuice.
Any radical feminist blogs (besides yours) you would recommend, Violet?
I like Twisty’s blog. I don’t agree with her on everything, but she’s always interesting and readable.
-
Sameol says:
tinfoil hattie, thanks very much for bringing the facts about Hugo to light. Absolutely beyond belief, even for everyone who never had any use for him in the first place.
-
tinfoil hattie says:
Well, Sameol, I wish I had been the one to bring the facts to light – it was actually a different evil radical feminist who mentioned it on a long, LONG thread about Hugo. I’ve never had any use for him. I think its is laughable to have a men teaching women’s studies, for instance, and I think it’s an insult to consider any man an “expert” in feminism. When I found out he had written a post on “this one time I tried to kill myself and my ex-girlfriend, BTW” my stomach turned.
-
quixote says:
It’s obvious why radical feminists are the problem. Without them, we live in the best of all worlds, everything’s good, unicorns and rainbows are everywhere. With them, there’s an awful lot of work to do and all of it is open heart surgery of the soul. Without anesthetic.
Oh, and they have the nasty habit of putting women’s rights front and center instead of effacing themselves properly in favor of everyone else. If that’s not racist / transphobic / classist / downright-appalling-ist, then I don’t know what is.
-
Ugsome says:
ThreeWickets, an entire generation of so-called feminists outsourced their feminism to a narcissistic man (cf. Ms. ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ cover) and we’ve all been living with the consequences for four years.
-
quixote says:
This is like revising the Standard Model of physics based on YouTube comments.
Seconding tinfoil hattie. Best laugh all year!
-
Ugsome says:
Quixote: you know the family dynamic where dad hits mom sho smacks the kid who kucks the cat? That’s why everyone, including other feminists, hate on the radicals. shit rolls downhill.
-
Unree says:
Hugo Schwyzer needs to be repudiated by feminists and decent human beings. Having experienced only a thin version of the creep-vibe from him I used to drop by his place now and then, commented occasionally. No mas.
Violet, I clicked on your radical feminist link above and saw a friendly 2006 exchange between you and Barry Deutsch of Ampersand. I don’t want a link, but can you direct me to the offending cartoon?
-
Ugsome says:
Well, no less a light than Margaret Thatcher thought feminists “poison” , see Historiann’s post: http://www.historiann.com/2012.....e-edition/. Plus! It’s all mom’s fault.
-
Boner Killer says:
Nothing beats horrible misrepresentations of radical feminism – patriarchy oppresses women and the LGBT community… everyone actually who isn’t a white straight dude is oppressed by patriarchy!…how do radical feminists “oppress” others and do all of those terrible things that commenter is claiming? Such bullshit.
-
Boner Killer says:
Twisty’s blog was the first blog I ever read, and it still remains my favourite. When people ask me about radical feminist writings, instantly point to Twisty!
-
Violet Socks says:
Violet, I clicked on your radical feminist link above and saw a friendly 2006 exchange between you and Barry Deutsch of Ampersand.
Ah, 2006. The Planck era. That was before Barry sold his blog to the pornographers, before a lot of shit went down that completed the balkanization of online feminism.
No, I can’t give you a link to that cartoon, because I don’t remember when it was. But the gist of it was that radical feminists = transphobes. Perfect equivalence. I believe he lumped radical feminists in with white supremacists (who hate black people) and homophobes (who hate gay people), and others of that ilk.
It was stunning to me because it was so dishonest. As in, “all feminists want to shoot Andy Warhol” dishonest. As in, “all feminists are Marxists who think male babies should be strangled at birth” dishonest.
What made it even more amazing and offensive was Barry’s status as the proprieter of one of the most highly trafficked feminist blogs—a status he’d parlayed into a tidy sum of money, by the way, when he sold his blog to pornographers. So here’s a guy—a man—who has spent years presenting himself as a feminist and even an expert on feminism. You would kind of think that someone who is a feminist and runs a feminist blog would know that radical feminism is one of the major divisions of feminism, that it is in fact the most fertile feminist movement in modern history, that radical feminism is pretty much the reason we’ve made any progress at all (the Nineteenth Amendment sure didn’t do it). You would think that such a person would know that the “womyn-born-womyn” lesbian separatists aren’t the mainstream of any branch of feminism (except their own); that they’re just the tiniest fringe of the fringe. You would think.
-
Carmonn says:
Yes, but whenever anyone points out that we’re only dealing with a handful of online assholes, the response is invariably, “Oh yeah? Germaine Greer! What about Germaine Greer!”
Seriously. Germaine Greer.
-
julia says:
This is the fired up blog I remember! :)
I, too, am against men in Women’s Studies departments – they are the majority everywhere else. If we don’t have Women’s Studies, we don’t have anything.
In terms of Gender Studies, Mary Daly was right. The word ‘gender’ waters everything down: I have to cock my head to the side and think – what does that mean? Womens’ Studies or Feminist Studies (much better) says it clearly.
A pro-feminist man can teach in sociology, or political science, oe history, where he would be doing a real service.
The writer of “The Gender Knot”, Allan Johnson, taught sociology.
-
tinfoil hattie says:
Now they’re defending Bill Maher over at Feministe. Because, he’s a misogynist, but he’s SOOOOO FUNNY!
-
Violet Socks says:
I’m sorry, I’m shutting this discussion down. It attracts trolls, some of whom are now trying to hack into the blog. If it’s not hacker-stalker-trolls wreaking havoc in the name of “sex-positive feminism,” it’s hacker-stalker-trolls wreaking havoc in the name of “radical feminism.” You know what? None of these people are feminists, not in any real sense. They’re just INSANE FUCKING TROLLS. Please, go attach yourselves to some other movement that you can use as a cover for your fucking insanity.
-
Violet Socks says:
AND STOP STALKING ME YOU GODDAMN FUCKING TROLLS.
« Thank you, President Obama | Home | Life »
