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More Big Fat Lies

* Radical feminists want to rule over men.
* Radical feminists want to create a world just like this one, but with women in charge this time.
* Radical feminists think women are morally superior to men.

None of the above is true. Historically, radical feminists have sought a completely different world from the one we now have, nonheirarchical, peaceful, respectful of earth, animals, all creation, human beings, radically egalitarian. Many have envisioned replacing the economies we now have -- all of them -- with "gift economies" in which the goal is not the amassing of profit or wealth but the meeting of human needs and wants, where it isn't greed that motivates us, but, well, pleasure. Love. Community. Spirit.

I'll write a little more in a bit.

Heart

If you think that that’s an exaggeration on my part, take a look at Ginmar’s website and the prescription you would have to follow to be considered a feminist in her eyes: you would have not only to utterly forswear the Patriarchy, but reject all those tainted with male sexism (it might be your brother, it might be your father, no matter - feminism for men is a vocation or it is nothing!): in short you would have to die to the world and live exclusively in the consciousness of women’s suffering. Evidently, only an infinitesimal number of men are going to make the grade. And Ginmar speaks with a voice that many radical feminists recognize as authentic and representative.

Yeah, I wrote a piece about how if you are a man and you are serious about feminism, you have to accept the fact that it will have an effect on your popularity and relationships. It can get you ostracized. It can get you rejected. It might very well lose you your male privilege.

Amp evidently got way more emails about Aegis than me, but Bean had to prod him to come clean, and he still won't say who they were.

And thank you for the great laugh I got over at your blog this morning. (Well, it was a bitter laugh, but it was still a great laugh.)

Andrea Dworkin: "Society views all sex as rape."

Twits: "OMG, AD said all sex is rape."

Me: If you really embrace feminism, you'll pay a price for it.

(And as always, Ginmar's blog is so worth the read, here's the link:http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/)

I am sorry to say that I could write all day and all night about the lies people have told about me. I could write about that ALL of the day and night. And especially lately. And how entirely AGGRAVATING might that be.

I have an errand to run, but I will be back to commiserate with you at length. For now, so glad to read you here, Ginmar, you rock, and nobody here will get away with telling lies about you, or about any feminist. Argh.

Heart

I've got some git whining on my blog now about how she complained about me but she won't identify herself becuase I've so evil. Maybe I am; but fuck, I'm sure no coward, am I?

If we weren't accomplishing anything, we woulnd't be pissing people off.

IT IS PRE-FUCKING-POSTEROUS. It is deranged. It is sick. Someone needs to theorize it, write about it, make sense of it, and talk it up. I've got some ideas, I've got some stuff cooking in the back of my mind-- some thoughts about "mimetic desire", "mimesis," "sacralized violence,"

And if I sound intense it's because I have just emerged from an IDENTICAL, I am telling you, identical, situation, except that -- not to play hierarchies of radical-feminist-smack-downs, heh heh -- the smack-down I got was so extreme, it was like some sort of bizarre spoof, except it wasn't. These people were serious. Which is way creepy.

I'll tell you what kind of feminist your "anonymous" is: (1) not a feminist at all but calling herself one for various, mostly nefarious, reasons; (2) the fun kind of feminist, to wit, the kind of feminist all the boys really like, again for various, mostly nefarious, reasons; (3) she is indeed a feminist, maybe a radical feminist, but she resents you for some reason. Maybe because you're smarter than she is. Or you're a better writer, you know more, your life experiences make your work credible or powerful in a way hers don't. Or people she cares about or admires respect you in a way they don't respect her. Or she's just got some other axe to grind in your direction, for her own reasons. The women in this latter group can cause a whole lot of damage. They can make the garbage dished out by garden variety anti-feminists and misogynists, or people in groups 1 and 2 dangerous, destructive, damaging, in a way it wouldn't be otherwise.

In my own situation, an MTF on other boards elsewhere in the universe decided it was time to "take me down" (the troll's own words: "Someone had to take Heart down." Creepy, I know. Threatening.) So the troll began a hate campaign, focusing on me, but incorporating others as s/he went along, anyone who challenged the hate campaign. I stood up to it to the degree that I could, but it gets to be tiring and ridiculous when the campaign is tiring and ridiculous, i.e., Robin Morgan and I and Mary Daly and Janice Raymond and other radical feminists I respect were called "David Duke in drag," "Nazis," "Fascists," "Stalinists," "Mussolini." When that didn't work, I was accused of "hiding" my fundie past, and what was the evidence of that? All of the massive amounts of information, posted by me, to the internet, about my fundie past, to wit, "Lookie there, Heart used to be a fundie, she even said so." Crazy, but really malevolently crazy. What made what the troll did so destructive was, along the way, women, some of them feminist, who had axes to grind, either participated in the attacks or subtly encouraged them. I got blamed for the attacks because I "encouraged" them because I "responded" to them and "engaged the troll." Because, you know, the thing to do as a feminist woman on feminist boards is let any asshole say anything the asshole wants to say and just take it like .... a woman. The way women are *supposed* to take shit without complaining. Just pretend it's all fine, smile, and chat above the din. In the midst of one hate campaign, the troll urged all of these hordes of feminist women the troll insisted had been "silenced" by me to say so, and only one did, but it was a woman I have appreciated in the past. She's been mad at me mostly for something that happened here *years* ago, water under the bridge, something for which everybody involved, including me, offered apologies. I'd left her alone, except to encourage her when she showed up here again or wherever else I was. And yet she chose that moment to participate in sheer hatefulness, giving it a certain credibility. Very hurtful (and it will be hard for me to forgive and get over, although I'm going to try). In the midst of another episode of the hate campaign, a woman who describes herself as more a "humanist" than a feminist, but who had been working on cultivating the respect of the feminists on the board accused me of "silencing" the troll, and why? Because the troll had deleted the worst of the troll's hateful diatribes. That was my fault. It wasn't that the diatribes were so over the top, even the troll worried about leaving them there, no, no. And then the "humanist" woman participated also in the troll's attacks. Agreed that I had nefariously "hidden" my fundie past by posting it all over the internet and talking about it at length everywhere I went. So bizarrely, bizarrely crazy. And again, some women took the "humanist" women's posts seriously, and why? I think it was because they had their own grievances and axes to grind, pettiness, vindictiveness, resentments, all sorts of stuff. And that resulted in another wave of hatefulness, the troll spurred on by what were really crumbs of encouragement from feminist women, who really didn't mean so much to encourage the troll as to hurt me while they had a chance to, that was painful and sad, as it was meant to be, but that was all the troll needed. It finally became so incredibly dark and poisonous in there, there was so little of value being posted, that I left. Meaning now the trolls have free reign, all of them. They are in control of the politics section of those boards. Just as, pretty much, the anti-feminists and men's rights assholes dominate on Alas. (And interestingly, the MTF who launched the hate campaign is herself/himself, depends on the day, a Father's Rights girl/guy.) My departure hasn't stopped the troll(s) from continuing their hate campaign from afar, though. I am very sure that if they could find a way to register, they'd register here and wage their campaigns here, or wherever I was. I am sure they will continue to accuse us of "silencing" women even though we are long gone. The truth is, neither you, ginmar, nor I, bullied anybody. We didn't silence anybody, either. We used our own intelligent, educated, eloquent voices to confront misogyny and woman-hating. We did it fearlessly and without apology and relentlessly. And that's what got us what we got. And it sucks.

But you know, it won't stop me, and I know it won't stop you. We're smarter than they are, we are wiser than they are, and most important, we love women, and they do not. We are committed to women and they are not.

Well, this was therapeutic. Thanks for coming over here for bandages and salve. I am always glad to supply those! Not only do I hope they will be healing in your direction, ginmar, and encouraging, my experience is that in their application, I'm healed, too. Feels good for another womon to feel me, you know? So thanks for that.

Heart

Well, it's depressing. But it *is* what happens to women who won't be silent about what happens to women. Meaning you are so right, Ginmar, we're doing something right.

Heart

Heh heh.

Heart

I had a pair of conservative women take me to task after I came back from war for being so 'bitter.' One of them was a Xtian fundie who was SO fundie she wrote Xtian vampire fic, where the central character was a vampire who got religion. Don't get me started. She woldn't read anything about the war unless it came from conservative pundits.

I found that being a soldier is one of the feminist things I could have done, because boy, it just shuts up people like you would not believe. If they still persist with all the woman-hating crap, you know they're essentially unreachable.

But, anyway, I find the women who don't have the courage even to listen just fascinating. I can't imagine being that cowardly. Then again, I think one of the primary things about being a feminist is that you have to be brave. Then again, you have to be brave to be a soldier, too. What peole don't realize about both is that you don't have to start off brave. You fight so much that you go brave---and there's no going back. Those two things are linked for me.

Since I got back, I've shouted down dipshits all over, and literally gone toe to toe and eye to eye with men a foot taller than me, and made them back down. I wish I could show that to other women. Men are afraid of women like that. Some women are, too, because that's the way to get your rights: demand them, don't back dwon, and don't ever agree to trade freedom for chivalry.

I think t hat's my troll over at my blog. I think she's a good girl and finds bad girls threatening---too much freedom, you know.

Since I got back, I've shouted down dipshits all over, and literally gone toe to toe and eye to eye with men a foot taller than me, and made them back down. I wish I could show that to other women. Men are afraid of women like that. Some women are, too, because that's the way to get your rights: demand them, don't back dwon, and don't ever agree to trade freedom for chivalry.

So true. I have done the same. And have felt really proud of myself. What's sad are the women who excuse the men, who justify what they do, who start talking about how most men are really good guys and some women are really bad guys. What's really sad are the women who say, "If you shout down the foot-taller dipshits, you are just as bad as patriarchal men." Um, no. As women we are always already in a state of having been shouted down, from the time of our births, compared with men. When we shout men down, we are confronting, not only them, but the system which has rewarded and privileged them from the time of their birth for the accident of their maleness. We are resisting male supremacist power. We are kicking male supremacist butt. We are offering them a clue: "Some of us are going to resist you." I am not talking about being violent; violence isn't a tool I would choose to use against anyone, male, female, child, creature. But shouting a male supremacist down isn't violent. It is resistance. A male supremacist shouting a woman down IS violent, it always already invokes the spectre of patriarchal violence-- because of the power men continue to wield in the earth. Then there are the women who tell you to "be the change you want to see in the world" -- and I like that as far as it goes, of course, I've used that maxim myself, but we have to always remember those words were uttered by a male attorney, not a woman marginalized under patriarchy -- as though somehow we should just pretend that male supremacist forces are not arrayed against us, as they clearly are. As though it's just a matter of our getting our acts together, of our bootstrapping ourselves into our own liberation, and if we haven't done that, well, what's wrong with us, and when we note the status of women in the world -- women's material status in the world -- then comes the thought stopping victim cliches, "Oh, you're thinking like a victim." Reminds me of that school of fundie-dom where it's all about "positive confession" and repenting of your "negativity" and "speaking things into existence." It's the same shit, different day, blaming women for what they suffer because they ARE women, for what it has done to them, for the way it hurts them ALL of the time.

What lies do they tell about you, Ginmar? Here are some I'm happy to refute:

(1) Heart doesn't tolerate anything but the radical feminist party line on her boards.

Absolute, certifiable, bullshit. When the Op/Ed page goes up I'm going to link to a listing of blogs/websites of Margins women. Here on the Margins there is EVERY kind of womon, posting regularly: lesbian separatists to radical feminist militants to conservative Christians, single women, married women, married-several-times women, never-plan-to-marry, women, women opposed to marriage, professional women, stay-at-home moms, black women, Asian women, white women, biracial women, European women, teenagers, women in their 50s and 60s, mothers, grandmothers. Here there are women who who are pastors, attorneys, professors, students, soldiers, anti-porn activists, nude models, sex educators, musicians, artists, writers, retail clerks, domestic violence workers, magazine publishers. There are women here who are disabled because, basically, they were women under male supremacy. There are women here who were once prostituted, there are pro-trans-inclusion people, anti-trans-inclusion people, and every variation in between. There are women here who voted Democrat, Republican and Green in the last few elections, and there are women here who are anarchists who have never voted and never will.

And you know what? Neither char nor I have has ever, in the last going on five years, banned a woman from these boards. Never. Not once. For anything, let alone for not towing some ideological party line. So it's just stupid to suggest we don't tolerate ideological difference here. What I don't tolerate here is MEN. I have banned MEN from these boards. I have also banned MTFs from these boards. These boards are woman-only, period. But if you're a woman, then you are free to post here.

(2) Here is another stupid lie. I was paid by the Religious Right to tell women to submit to their husbands. That's bullshit.

I published a magazine, unaffiliated with any group, begun out of my kitchen, with 17 subscribers. At its height some years later, it was a full-color glossy publication with a circulation of 30,000-50,000 internationally, depending how you calculate those figures. I criss-crossed the country for a couple of years, speaking one weekend a month about homeschooling, unschooling, homesteading, small farming, organic gardening, simple living, living on a very small income, home birth, responsive breastfeeding, family bed, noncoercive parenting, homeschooling history, household organization, writing your own unit studies, getting your unschooled/homeschooled kids into college, raising chickens, raising sheep, making soap, all sorts of homestead crafts, parenting teenagers, alternative currencies, land trusts, alternative economies, intentional community. I spoke out of my own experiences as a person who lived in intentional Christian community: pacifist, racially diverse, separated, much like the Amish/Mennonites/Brethren, conscientious objectors, theoretically consensus based and nonhierarchical, (but that pertained only to the men because women were severely subjugated) and bible literalist. As women in that community, we created our own community-within-the-patriarchal-community, and I spoke out of that particular experience.

(3) Stupid lie number 3: I am transphobic. I'm not even going to dignify this one. It is too stupid.

So what lies do they tell about you, Ginmar. Go for it. Refute at your leisure. I will be cheering you on.

Heart

I compiled them in a handy dandy list. For real desperation and pathos, though, you need to go to Stand Your Ground, where they've got a twelve-page topic devoted to me, whining about how they're complimented when Amp shows up and refutes their shit. They call themselves a force to be reckoned with, which is kind of cute, because if they were, they'd have more guts.

I find, frankly, that out in the real world it scares guys more when I use my quiet, low, I-can-de-escalate-or-escalate-this-any-time-I-want-to voice.

What's really amusing is the trolls that don't think I'm a real woman, or in the words of one spectacularly sad MRA: "I bet she loads her shotguns with tampoms." Yeah, dude, do we have issues with women's bodies, you think?