There is a worldwide community of radical feminists.
We don’t always agree on issues, and we don’t always disagree respectfully. We’re not perfect ethical beings (or perfect feminists) all the time either. There are personality clashes, and there are frequently differences of priorities. Sometimes there are betrayals– big and small.
Given that, I’m still glad to be a part of this community. We all hate the patriarchal bulls’it that says our value is in our objecthood. We are infuriated when we see pimps masquerading to spread their woman hating propaganda. We recognize that male pattern violence serves to terrorize women into a state of Societal Stockholm Syndrome.
We are working towards the liberation of women.
The other night, I had a dream that I ran into one of the women I met at the Reboot. In the dream, we were both busy doing other things with our time, but once we saw each other we ran together and shared a giant hug.
Then we went about our days separately. The dream wasn’t really even about this person– it was simply a side note in a larger sequence. But in the dream, as I went about my business doing other things, it was so great to know that I was not alone. There was a sister nearby.
Some of us are geographically closer to one another than others. But what we do share– no matter the distance– is sisterhood.
We are part of a community, and I am extremely grateful for it.
I was honored and overjoyed to have participated in this fabulous gathering of women to combat male supremacy and build community. What follows is a summary of the speakers/panelists, as well as some of my own experiences. Days two and three will follow shortly.
The organizers were fabulous enough to provide a ride from the place we were staying, which I really appreciated. I entered the venue, and immediately began meeting online radical feminists (RFs) that I had known through the internet for the past 18 months or so. Each new face and hug was thrilling! (I found myself using that word a lot when describing this conference). As we settled down for breakfast with each other, the first presentation began.
Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne began to speak about a very personal subject—their love for each other. Their accomplishments over the years, as well as the challenges they have faced as publishers of Spinfex Publishing, did come out of the discussion. But what I took away from this more than anything was the incredible strength and love they have for each other—and the ways in which this relationship as well as their love for women sustained them both in tough times. They were so inspiring!
Next came a panel that I was honored to be on about the challenges and benefits of being a younger radical feminist. Interestingly, the entire conference was populated by a wide range of younger and older RFs—I was by no means the youngest. Nevertheless, I explained how I came to radical feminism (following the crumbs from the “Spinster Aunt Gets Translucent” post over at I Blame the Patriarchy). I also discussed how online activism is challenging because we rarely get to meet together in person, but beneficial because we are able to reach a wider audience. I mentioned the woman who, through the course of visiting my blog, discovered that her husband was indeed a porn user, and used that example to discuss the implications of online consciousness raising. Finally, I closed by mentioning Janice Raymond’s concept of dual vision—whereby we acknowledge the atrocities committed within patriarchy, while at the same time having a vision of what the world should be. Sisterhood and woman-centeredness should be the focus of both these types of vision. During this panel, Terri Strange did a brilliant job of highlighting the dangers of being a RF including receiving death threats and stalkers, as well as discussed her own journey to radical feminist consciousness.
Next, Hilla Kerner spoke on organizing strategies for women’s liberation. One point she made that really stuck with me is that when organizing in a collective, it is vitally important to make sure that those involved in the collective share the same goals. Otherwise, the collective cannot survive. These are exceptionally important words, and I will remember them for future organizing.
Heart Sees spoke after lunch about reaching out to women in fundamentalist/religious groups. She listed criteria for “high demand” groups (formerly called “cults”), and elucidated reasons why, though women in these groups are certainly oppressed, some may have seen their fundamentalist group as offering the best of the bad deal women are dealt in our patriarchal society (a la Andrea Dworkin in Right Wing Women). She urged compassion and understanding when reaching out to these women. Her talk was both engaging and enlightening.
On to the crafts, organized by Silvia Black! We all created posters celebrating radical feminist ideals, skewering the pornstitution industry, or lambasting queer politics. It was a lot of fun!
After that, the great Kathleen Barry presented the book launch of Big Porn Inc, another great book from Spinifex Press. The book discusses the normalization of porn and prostitution through pop culture, sex therapy, “female sexual dysfunction”, video games, strip clubs, and the like. Dr. Barry encouraged us, in our organizing, to think big— not to consider what the next goal is, but what five goals ahead is. We don’t want our movement to become a one person, or a one issue movement. This was great advice from a fabulous foresister.
With that, we closed down for the day, but the fun wasn’t over. A large group of us decided to take on the town. We first visited a bar. Oddly enough, it had a “gender” neutral bathroom! Of all the bathrooms in all the bars in this town, we had to visit the one without a women’s restroom. Crack me up.
Next, it was on to a gay bar where we enjoyed fabulous dance music and laughter. There is truly no experience like spending time with your radical feminist sisters—I was thrilled to have been a part of this.
I got to bed with not enough sleep, ready for day two to begin!
I just discovered this fabulous video from Lierre Keith’s reboot talk. I’ve linked the video at this particular section of her talk, and have transcribed as best as I can hear what she says on the topic. You may want to watch the whole thing, but I found this section particularly relevant.
I really encourage you to watch this or at least read the transcript. Many of us already know this stuff, but the way Keith explains that gender is a hierarchy– not a binary, and is a tool of oppression, may be helpful for those who aren’t familiar with thinking about gender in this way. TW for references to violence.
I can’t figure out how to link to just the time I want to share at, but start at 24 minutes and 14 seconds to match up with the transcription.
[EDIT: I see that Gallus Mag also has this video at her place. Hello cross posting. ]
Transcribed from video:
On to patriarchy. [laughter about slide] I thought you might need a laugh about now. So, as Mary Daly pointed out, um, I think in in 1978, patriarchy is the ruling religion of the planet. And I, I feel like Kathy Barry pretty well covered this this morning, so let’s skip three pages [turns pages, and begins to speak on patriarchy].
Patriarchy takes human beings who are biologically male, and creates a class of people called “men”. So men are made by socialization to this thing called masculinity. And that’s that process that turns a child into a boy and eventually into a man. And that requires a certain psychology. Masculinity, um, the psychology requires different things. Entitlement, emotional numbness, and a dichotomy of self and other. And of course that first despised other is girls. So, the worst thing you can call a boy is some version of “girl”, or some part of female anatomy– we all know the words they use. So once that process is in place, that category “icky female” has been created, you can then substitute that in a hierarchical society. Any group that needs to be subordinated can fill in for female.
And masculinity, of course, is essential to any militarized culture . That is the psychology necessary for soldiers. You’re only going to kill on command if that human impulse to care has been subdued or suppressed and that psychological process of othering is well entrenched.
Now central to masculinity is a violation imperative. Men become “real men” by breaking boundaries. The real brilliance of patriarchy is that it doesn’t just naturalize oppression. It sexualizes acts of oppression. It eroticizes domination and subordination, and then it takes that eroticized domination and subordination, and institutionalizes that into masculinity and femininity. So, it naturalizes, it eroticizes, and it institutionalizes.
The brilliance of feminism, is that we figured that out.
So femininity, well that’s just a set of behaviors that are in essence ritualized submission. So female socialization is a process of psychologically constraining and ultimately breaking girls, and that process is called grooming. And that creates a class of compliant victims. So across history, those practices have included foot binding, female genital mutilation, and of course the ever popular childhood sexual abuse. Femininity is really just the traumatized psyche displaying acquiescence. Now this is not natural; it is not created by god. It is a corrupt and brutal social order.
It’s become popular in some activist circles to embrace notions from postmodernism, and that includes the idea that gender is somehow a binary. Gender is not a binary. It is a hierarchy. It is global in its reach, it is sadistic in its practice, and it is murderous in its completion. Just like race, and just like class. Gender demarcates the geopolitical boundaries of the patriarchy—which is to say, it divides us in half. That half is not horizontal—it is vertical. And in case you missed this part, men are always on top.
Gender is not some cosmic yin/yang; it’s a fist, and the flesh that bruises. Okay? It is the mouth crushed shut, and the little girl who will never be the same. Gender is who gets to be human, and who gets hurt. And that has to be made very clear, because men know what they are capable of. They know. They know the sadism that they have built into their sex. So what they say to each other is “Do it to her. Not to me, the human being, but to her. The object. The thing”. So they have to make it very clear, both visually, and ideologically, who she is. So see, there she is, unable to walk. Or there she is, on display. Or there she is, um, you know, covered and secluded, for your eyes only.
And how much easier if you can say “God made her this way, to lie beneath me”. Or easier to say, “Nature made her this way, the thing with the hole”. Or, if you can say, “She made herself this way, the slut who asked for it”. Because we always ask for it. The rape, the battering, the poverty, the prostitution— even the murder. We asked for it.
Now, all of those practices in aggregate, those are what Andrea Dworkin named the barricade of sexual terrorism. And gender is what demarcates that boundary, very exactly. And this is really simple, people. Barricade. Women live inside the barricade of sexual terrorism. Men live outside the barricade of sexual terrorism. In fact, men built that barricade. Fist by fist, and f*ck by f*ck. It is exactly those violent violating practices that construct a class of people called “women”. That is what men do to break us, and to keep us broken. And that is what gender is: the breaking, and the broken.
In it, women are told that they must re-evaluate their lesbian identity if they are attracted to both women and trans men, or else they are being “transphobic”. As Jos Truitt (the author) says:
My trans brothers deserve better than sex in a frame that undermines their identities [that is, sex with lesbians who sleep with trans men]. This doesn’t mean queer cis women and gender non-conforming female assigned folks can’t f*ck trans men, but then they owe it to these guys to reframe their sexuality in a way that’s not undermining – to recognize that they sleep with men, and to question why they’re OK with sleeping with trans men and not cis men.
In other words, if you sleep with trans men, you can’t legitimately call yourself a lesbian any more. YOU must change your identity, and Jos (who does not identify as a lesbian) has the right to request that you make this change. Additionally, you must ask yourself why you refuse to consider dating “cis men”. This statement places the onus on lesbians to determine why they have decided not to date “cis men”– rather than allowing them to decide for themselves who they should be attracted to.
Note that gay and straight men are not being called to task for not properly identifying themselves so as to avoid “transphobia”. It’s women– once again– who are the target of this ostensibly “feminist” critique.
Lesbians are under attack. At a recent dyke march, Cathy Brennan was cornered by tens of trans/queer activists, and screamed at. You can see video here, as well as one trans critique of the violent rhetoric currently swirling from the queer/trans community. Brennan has stated that she has never felt so unsafe as she did at the NYC Dyke March 2012.
But Cathy Brennan is not the only target. Lesbians are under fire. First it was the cotton ceiling debacle, and now this article at feministing.
Female reality is also under fire, and we are not even permitted to organize and discuss it.
It is unclear to me why “feminists” focus so much attention on policing women and lesbians, when the entire purpose of feminism has always been the liberation of women.
As an ally and a woman, I will stand with my sisters against oppression– no matter the source.
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.
This is an open letter about men who claim to be feminist and to the women who believe them. This letter is directed at women who — without any analysis or criteria — believe men who claim to be feminist. This letter is not directed at anybody else, so please ensure that you are indeed a member of the intended audience before replying. This letter has been written with the cooperation of 28 radical feminists, all of whom should be familiar to those who frequent radical feminist spaces. We are rather serious today, about a rather serious harm being committed with impunity.
First, you need to know why we have a valid reason for being concerned about the behavior of self-identified feminist men within feminist spaces, and our answer is simple: We have identified the subtle mechanisms utilized by pro-feminist men to “divide and conquer”, to erase the commonality from all women within feminist spaces and whose cumulative effect results in a gross marginalization of the radical feminist position. Nor are we are the only women to notice a problem. Megan Milanese brilliantly describes most of the tactics here — yet that list does not go far enough to analyze the extent of the problem.
So why should an erasure of the commonality inherent to all women matter to anyone besides radical feminists? Lucky Nickel makes the relevant connection for us:
Self-naming and self-identified labels mean nothing. There must be substance to the label they identify with and substance to who they claim to be. Otherwise folks can insist on calling a mouse a giraffe or claim rape is really love.
What I do think important to note is that liberals, lesbian separatists and radical feminists are all flying the radfem flag these days. The problem being, they are 3 separate and distinct political groups and ideologies, 2 of whom are inappropriately waving the radfem flag. It can get a bit tricky tho with lesbian separatists as radical feminists can also be lesbian separatists. But not all lesbians are radfems and not all radfems are lesbian separatists, or even lesbian for that matter. But in Julian Real’s case, that would be irrelevant. The dude is not a lesbian or radical feminist.
What the dude is, is liberal. And what he is attempting to do is appropriate the radical feminist label in order to inject liberal ideology. Equality politics are liberal politics, not radical feminist politics. Radical feminists seek liberation from men and their system, not equality. Liberals focus on differences between women. Radical feminists focus on the commonality of women. Needless to say, these 2 different ideologies conflict and clash. Which delights men like Julian Real to no end. Cuz if he keeps liberal women pitted against radical feminist women, it keeps women from unifying, which in turn keeps the heat off of pricks like him and men in general. Slick, no?
In talking to each other privately, we have decided to collectively communicate the following message regarding Julian Real, Hugo Schwyzer, and other men like them who claim to be feminist allies. These men do not speak for women as well as we can speak for ourselves and we ask that you give radical feminist bloggers the respect of reading our words, joining the discussion in comments on our blogs, and contributing to our own community rather than giving energy to men like Julian & Hugo who seek to divide us on points which all feminists have in common. Men exhibiting these behaviors have inserted themselves into discussions among women when their participation was insidiously harmful in nature, and we ask that you not support that behavior nor make excuses for it.
[Image from here]
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