Radical Feminist Mini-Retreat

I was fortunate to have been able to attend a regional radical feminist mini-retreat the first weekend in November. We did a lot of brainstorming, networking, sharing, and discussing. It was truly awesome to be in person with my sisters, and I am so grateful to have been a part. Sorry for the length of the post– feel free to jump ahead to the sub-topics if you don’t have time for the whole thing.

Topics to Cover
On Friday night we decided what topics we were going to cover. We agreed to talk about what projects we are working on in our own lives, how to navigate the queering of our cities, and how to deal with disagreements within our radical feminist community. We also agreed to watch Water Lilies, Andrea Dworkin’s Anti-Pornography, and the BBC documentary Angry Wimmin.

Film: Water Lilies
We watched a lovely lesbian film called Water Lilies. It depicted the difficulties of falling in love with a friend, as well as the predatory nature of most teen males. That aspect reminded me of my own youth, and made me wish I had known better that most young men are only after sex. It was melancholy, but also lovely, and I was really grateful to have gotten the opportunity to see it.

Discussion: Feminist Projects
The next morning we drank coffee and tea and discussed what our feminist projects are. Several projects were discussed, including the need for a radical feminist blog for teens, ways to get our message across in cities, podcasts, working in domestic violence shelters, getting porn out of libraries through employee rights, etc. It was a really productive discussion, and we were able to brainstorm together good ways of working towards helping women in “real life” as well as on the internet.

Walk
Next we took a lovely walk by the lake. It was so beautiful! It is really nice to be out in nature with sisters. One of us spotted a longhaired cat, and this absurd upturned chair:

Film: Against Pornography and Discussion
After lunch, we watched Against Pornography: The Feminism of Andrea Dworkin. You can find the documentary here. Dworkin explained that she always starts out her talks by describing what actually occurs in pornography, since folks may not be familiar with it. It isn’t just naked women’s bodies these days– it is violent, aggressive, and abusive. She says the message of porn is that no matter what happens to a woman in porn, she will enjoy it. This teaches men that women enjoy abuse, which makes it a very dangerous instruction manual. I really enjoyed this phrasing of the point, “Porn is the war room where strategies of sexual abuse are planned.” Porn ties orgasms to inequality, and it is an institution that socializes men to rape. She ended by reminding us that if you know what needs to be torn down, tear it down.

The film led to a very interesting discussion. We pointed out that many don’t address the problem of porn in our society, because many men don’t want to give up their porn, and many women don’t want to give up their men. So our society fails to address the issue because we are afraid of the changes we might need to make if we did. We also talked about BDSM and the consent ritual. Under patriarchy, women really have two options: consent to be hurt, or be hurt without consent. The thought is, perhaps if we consent to it, it won’t be as bad. We also discussed the phrase “consent is sexy”, which is often found on “feminist” placards and t- shirts. One woman pointed out that the reason rape is wrong is NOT because rape is “unsexy”. The “consent is sexy” campaign targets the wrong objection to rape. Furthermore, since women are told that sexy is a good thing, they are thereby coerced by this message, and encouraged to “consent”.

Film: Angry Wimmin
Next we watched Angry Wimmin which was an awesome documentary on the beginning of radical feminism in Brittan. It was interesting to see the ways in which our movement overlaps with theirs. For example, the movie talked about how radical feminists sometimes try to make sure in conversation to replace certain words with others. For example, to say “oh goddess!” instead of “oh god!” when frustrated or amazed, or to say “herstory” instead of “history”, etc. I have found myself afraid of bringing my patriarchal framings into discussions with other radical feminists by using these words, so I could totally relate. At the same time, I have also found that we shouldn’t be ashamed if we decide not to make simple word replacements like the above and focus our efforts on working to free women. It was also inspiring to see the first Reclaim the Night marches in this film. I saw a poster that said “all men benefit from rape”, and I thought that was right on. Non-rapist males benefit from a terrorized underclass of women who are afraid to go out at night (we all know that doesn’t mean all men rape). Of course, I was inspired by the movie, and I also hope we can avoid some of the pitfalls of what they went through. There was some discussion of racial tensions at the feminist publication Spare Rib. It was a good reminder that we keep in mind class and race issues while working towards women’s liberation.

Discussion: Queer Culture and Radical Feminism
After this documentary we discussed the ways that queer culture works against women’s liberation, and what to do about it. One woman pointed out that queer culture is often saturated by pornography. Some famous trans folk speak about and “star” in pornography, and many are highly resistant to radical feminist critiques of prostitution and pornography. This is the first clue that queer ideology may not be liberatory for women. Another clue is the lesbian erasure that occurs in queer communities. Many women have begun to identify as “queer” or “trans” rather than lesbian. Also, queer culture ignores the boundaries between men and women, and aggressively insists that women who would like to maintain their own private spaces are transphobic. Clearly, if women are not allowed to organize without MAAB (male assigned at birth) folk present, that is a problem for our liberation. We also discussed how to begin bringing the radical feminist message to folks within the queer-ified cities and towns we live in.

Discussion: Conflict within Radical Feminist Communities
Finally, we discussed what to do about conflicts within the radical feminist community. We all agreed that women must step in when we see others being abused– even if this makes us worried of being personally ostracized ourselves. We agreed that resolving conflict involves standing up for each other, meeting women where they are at, and supporting women who have been attacked, We agreed that when we disagree with a woman, it is best to either discuss the issue with her via private message, or in the comment section of her blog. It is not sisterly to, as a first strike, publicly denounce a woman on facebook or on your own blog. Clarification can sometimes dissolve conflict. We also recognized that sometimes resolution is not possible, and that in those cases it is best to disengage with one another, rather than dredging up old issues on a frequent basis. We are human, and we all make mistakes– sometimes huge mistakes. Sometimes there is abuse. But we are also a community with common goals.

Conclusion
I am fired up about finding more radical feminists in my community, and engaging in political action. I am so excited to be a part of this movement at this moment in time– despite how difficult it can be. We are attacked by MRAs (men’s rights activists), queer culture, the right wing, and the pornographers. We are often hated and many times deliberately misunderstood. But we are empathetic to the struggles of women’s lives, and we can provide a truthful analysis of life under patriarchy. We are here, we are organizing, and we are not going away.

Porn is Woman-Hating Propaganda

Trigger Warning

Who says most porn is violent? This study from 2010 says so.

Of the 304 [porn] scenes analyzed, 88.2 percent contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7 percent of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling. Perpetrators of aggression were usually male, whereas targets of aggression were overwhelmingly female. Targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression.

Pornography that shows women enjoying aggressive verbal and physical treatment teaches men that women generally enjoy this type of treatment. It is propaganda that:

promotes certain views about men and women. It promotes the view that women want to be f*cked – it is their nature. If they say no they mean yes, even if they say it hurts or it looks like it hurts they still say they like it. In pornography, women get hurt and they ask for more. They are called names, spat at, choked, airtighted, slapped and they enjoy it. They smile and say that they enjoyed it. Only in pornography does a human being ask someone to hurt her.” (from this great article.)

Exploitation-positive feminists claim that pornography is liberating, but in fact it teaches men that women enjoy being “put in their place”. The end result of this type of propaganda can be found in this MRA gem:

h88p://wxw.inmalafide.com/blog/2012/02/27/the-necessity-of-domestic-violence/

It’s the same when it comes to disciplining women. Slapping a girl across the face isn’t just about hurting her, it’s a kind of neg. It says, “I can crush you like an insect, but you aren’t worth the effort.” It’s a tacit acknowledgment that she’s weaker than you, beneath you, and if she crosses you again, you’ll put her in the hospital. You treat her like she’s a child throwing a temper tantrum, not an equal.

and

Damn, it’s almost like some girls like this “domestic violence” thing!

Sean Connery seems okay with it, after all.

Post-Feminist Society? I Think Not. On LoveRance and “Up!”

TW

This song called “Up!” by LoveRance feat. 50 cent regularly on the radio.

Chorus repeats:

I beat the p*ssy up up up up up up up

Lyrics include these lines:

d*ck your girl down cuz i know she really need it
put it in your gut, tear that p*ssy up
tell me where it hurts spread them legs
And you know i ate the p*ssy cuz she light skin

It is jaw droppingly offensive.

Are we in a post feminist society? I think not, particularly with audio pornography like this on the radio. I’m not going to bother analyzing what is wrong with these amazingly misogynistic lyrics- you all know.

These are not just lyrics on a random rap album- this song is #9 on the Billboard Top 10. This propaganda receives a lot of attention- and not, from what I’ve seen, from a feminist perspective.

Sometimes I think ignoring this type of hateful anti-woman propaganda is best. It can be overwhelming to see how much women are hated and viewed as mere objects to be f’kd.

But then I hear folks claiming that women and men are equal, and that we don’t need feminism (folks in my real life, and of course MRAs).

Of course, we all know that’s BS. But perhaps it’s a good idea to keep track of virulent misogyny (and also, colorism in this example) to whip out when arguing against anti-feminists.

We’ve got work to do.