On my blog, I had just linked to an excellent and common example by BrownFemiPower of white women getting credit for helping women at large when they’ve actually done a lot of harm to women.

How did they do this harm?

By forgetting to ask themselves whether women in a population group would be disproportionately hurt (compared to men in the same population group) by whatever actions they’re advocating (be they immigration actions, medical funding actions, military funding and policy actions, etc.)

—————————————

Today, BrownFemiPower saw another instance of white women getting credit for helping women at large when they have, by forgetting to apply their feminist knowledge to all their advocacy of various policy positions, done a lot of harm to many, many women.

Short summary:

• White feminists were getting mocked by conservatives for not criticizing misogyny conducted by non-whites against non-whites strongly enough.
• White feminists wrote a nationally publicized letter saying, “We do too! Hell, we FOUND that misogyny and were the first to tell the non-white perpetrators that they should stop it!”
• BrownFemiPower retorted (unfortunately, in a venue that isn’t nearly as highly publicized) that
  1. they shouldn’t even worry about whether they’re criticizing misogyny conducted by non-whites against non-whites until they’ve spent a heck of a lot more time criticizing misogyny conducted by whites against non-whites (usually through foreign policy) and
  2. they did NOT find the non-white-on-non-white misogyny mentioned by conservatives and they were NOT the first to tell the perpetrators of that misogyny to stop it–the VICTIMS did both.

Quotes from BFP’s post:

her little list of wrongs that “American feminists” stand against was the most irritating…

Hm. Who could Ms. Pollitt *possibily* be talking about here?…

Do you think it’s the U.S. government that is currently enforcing horrific immigration laws that are degrading and violating women and their families–-IN KATHA’S OWN DAMN COUNTRY?…

Why the particular emphasis on “Muslim countries?” Does Ms. Pollitt think that “Muslim countries” are particularly hostile to women’s rights for some reason?

Even as her own country imprisons 8 year old girls and deports their mothers?

Fact: it’s feminists who first identified atrocities against women around the world–female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, spousal violence, rape– as violations of human rights, not family matters or customs of no state importance.

Actually, Ms. Pollitt–it was the women who *experienced* those actions that first identified the violence being committed against them.

—————————————

Please, please, please, please, please–if you’re a white feminist, consider my suggestion for action instead of signing Ms. Pollitt’s letter:
Next time you’re around white feminists who are upset that the right wing is saying, “You don’t do enough to stop non-white violence against non-white women!” STOP them from retorting with a, “Look at all we’re doing!” and, worse yet, a resurgence of interest in taking that kind of action.

Tell your white feminist peers only to tell the right wing commentators, if they must retort at all:

“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong to assume that that is our job. Our job is to stop white violence against white women and white violence against non-white women. And we will work on those issues in the proportion that they exist today.

“Though we may lend time and resources when and to the extent that they are asked of us by non-white women, we refuse to claim that it is our job to ’stop’ non-white violence against non-white women.

“Thank you for listening, and please follow our bulletin for the amazing work we are doing stopping white violence against white women and white violence against non-white women in the coming months!”

So, Feministing is soliciting submissions for a new book called Yes Means Yes! (hat tip: feminist_writer LJ community). The book aims to brainstorm constructive ways that a more positive attitude towards sexuality, especially female sexuality, can help dismantle rape culture:

Imagine a world where women enjoy sex on their own terms and aren’t shamed for it. Imagine a world where men treat their sexual partners as collaborators, not conquests. Imagine a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished.

Welcome to the world of Yes Means Yes.

Yes Means Yes! will fly in the face of the conventional feminist wisdom that rape has nothing to do with sex. We are looking to collect sharp and insightful essays, from voices both established and new, that demonstrate how empowering female sexual pleasure is the key to dismantling rape culture.

Now, I am 100% behind the intent of the book. If I had the time, I would definitely submit something (unfortunately I barely have time to write my WisCon paper, and I have until May to finish that). It’s no secret that I’m a sex-positive feminist and I believe that sex-negative attitudes — both conservative sexual shaming and liberal forced sexuality — are harmful to a truly equal society and I think this book is an excellent opportunity to get some positive ideas out into the mainstream (or at least feminist-leaning mainstream). The book will go on my Amazon wishlist when it comes out.

However (there’s always a “however” with me, isn’t there?), I am not so pleased with this part of the pitch:

Yes Means Yes! will fly in the face of the conventional feminist wisdom that rape has nothing to do with sex.

There are two basic problems that I see with that line:

1. It perpetuates a fundamental misunderstanding of what “rape isn’t sex” is saying.
2. It is setting the editors/contributors in direct opposition to “conventional feminist wisdom”.

Below I’ll go into more detail as to the problems and talk about why I feel that this way of presenting feminist theory is problematic and ultimately hinders feminism as a movement.

Read the rest…

Not that this is earth shattering news or anything, but anti-oppression activists aren’t the only ones who are tired with the “it’s just a joke!” claim that’s aimed to get out of being responsible for one’s words. From a website called “Gothic Charm School” comes an article by the Lady of the Manners: Of Differences of Opinion. And IKEA.

An excerpt:

Telling someone that their reaction to something is stupid is never a good idea. Everyone has their own opinion, and no one is going to agree about everything all the time. But there are worlds of difference between telling someone you don’t agree with them and telling someone that they are stupid for caring about something. One leads to a potentially interesting discussion, while the other leads to pointless drama and snippy comments hurled to and fro.

Oh, and about the pointless drama and to-and-fro-ing of snippy comments: look Snarklings, the Lady of the Manners is going to be very blunt. Spending time mocking people for not thinking like you do makes you seem like a sad loser. Sure, you may think you’re being terribly clever and funny and oh-so-superior; what you’re actually doing is showing people that your life is very empty and that you have nothing better to do with yourself. Proclaiming that you’re only behaving this way because you think it’s all so terribly funny isn’t a good excuse, either. In short, you’re acting like a troll. Why should anyone take you seriously?

Rock on, Lady of the Manners.

[This is the final part of my series on Women and Violence, which I wrote as a project for a Women Studies course I took this quarter. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]

I realize that a quarter-long series of articles about violence against women can be depressing, and I’d like to end this on an optimistic note.

Unfortunately, I don’t have The Solution to violence against women. Even I don’t have delusions of being that wise. But – and here I’m engaging in a bit of hubris – I believe in the power of language to educate and agitate for change. That’s one of the reasons I chose to undertake this project, and why I choose to blog in general. Writing and dialoguing is important. It’s powerful. It’s consciousness raising in cyberspace.

Read the rest…

[This is part of my series on Women and Violence, which I am writing as a project for a Women Studies course I'm taking. For an explanation and information on my intentions with this series, please see the introduction.]

Yesterday some of my classmates gave a presentation about female genital cutting (though the terminology they used, and which is probably more familiar to people, is “female genital mutilation” – a difference which I’ll address later on). It’s an important, worthwhile issue, and I’m glad our class is addressing it.

Still, every time the topic comes up in conversation I cringe inwardly.

Read the rest…

[Happy one two year birthday to the Official Shrub.com Blog! I'm very grateful that Andrea gave me the opportunity to join her site, and I'm glad she's here doing all the work that she does. Here's to many more years.]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently took a class on racism and white privilege. My professor was unflinching in his recognition that some things about anti-oppression work are “impossible.” And while this sounds like a pessimistic view of things, I think it was very important that he acknowledged this concept and repeatedly brought it to our attention.

I chose to write about this subject for the one two-year anniversary of the Official Shrub.com Blog because of that importance, despite the fact that it also sounds pretty dreary. I mean, it is a bit disheartening to commemorate the birth of an anti-oppression blog by talking about everything it can’t do.

But recognizing difficulties can always do two different things: it can bring you down, and it can also help you clarify your path to better accomplish your goals. As you can guess, I hope to do the latter.

Read the rest…

Good afternoon, Shrub.com!
My name is Katie, and I’m a white cisgendered female heterosexual able-bodied blogger.

Andrea gave me a Shrub login a few weeks ago so I could post ideas that I thought fit the thoughtful “breaking out of roles we’re supposed to have based upon our social categories” theme I often see here. I never did post the original piece I meant to, but it wasn’t critical. This is. Everyone should know how to defend his or her body to the maximum extent he or she can, and those who know owe it to those who don’t to responsibly pass on whatever they can by word of mouth.

Therefore I’m reposting here a summary of my experiences in IMPACT’s “Defense Against Multiple Assailants” course. (If you want more details about “defense against a single assailant,” click here.)

I look forward to hearing your comments and engaging with you here on Shrub.com for a long time to come!

     Fighting multiple unarmed assailants bore some similarities to fighting single unarmed assailants. Firstly, the premise of the attack was sexual assault or some other act that implied the assailants wanted you alive and aware of what they were doing until they felt that they had managed to perform this act. Therefore, assailants were more likely to grab and restrain us than to throw a deadly punch.

     As in Single Unarmed Assailants class, the presumption was that they were out to

1. convince us to stop hitting them but not “fight” the way men fight each other and
2. do sexual things we didn’t want them to do (or, as I said, something like that).

     This class is not adequate preparation for fighting multiple henchmen in a Jet Li movie whose only goal is to kill you as fast as possible.

Read the rest…

[Crossposted to my Vox blog.]

Amy Gahran has a good post up about apologies and why they’re necessary.

The post was sparked by Amy Alkon’s advice column about cheating, entitled “Along Came Polyamory.” Understandably, many polyamorous folk were miffed at the equation of the concepts. (It’s hard enough figuring out who’s okay with the concept without it being confused with unethical behavior.) But rather than apologize for causing offense, Ms. Alkon decided to take the offensive, complaining that those who had a problem just didn’t understand her irony, and basically just being a big bully.

Coincidentally enough, I had just discovered Ms. Alkon’s anti-feminist screed “Victims Gone Wild” the other day. She seems to be one of those “postfeminists” in the vein of ifeminists or IWF that figure that since they’re privileged, anyone who complains that they’re not is just adopting a “victim mentality,” and that feminism is unnecessary because of what someone said Dworkin or Mackinnon said a couple decades ago.

Ms. Gahran’s post, though, could have been sparked by any of the non-apologies of late (Ann Althouse, Harlan Ellison, and so on all the metaphorical way back to “she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”) Why is it so hard for people to apologize for offending people? It can be done.

(…and we all screw up at some point.)

[Crossposted to my Vox blog.]

From Hugo Schwyzer’s post on the Valenti/Althouse incident, after he himself got called on an offensive comment he made:

For the record, I will happily pose for a picture with anyone. If the local leader of the Klan came by, I’d stand for a photo with my arm around him and grin for the camera, and then promptly give him a good earful. If the camera only captures my smile, and not my rebuke, that’s not my responsibility. Bill Clinton is not in the Klan. * Clinton’s private failings are better known than the failings of any other human being alive. But compared to the other living men who have held the office of president, he has clearly been the one most committed to the overall goals of the feminist agenda. And for that, he deserves our — qualified — gratitude.

*Sometimes I post things I ought not to have. Once they’ve been commented on, though, I don’t delete them — just strike them as evidence of my foolishness.

While we can debate whether it’s better to delete altogether or use strikethrough, either approach is a heck of a lot better than Althouse’s (and Ellison’s, and Kos’s) tactics of denial, minimization and blame-shifting. Thanks for pointing out the high road, Hugo.

I realize that, lately, I am an angry person.

I read the news, I get angry. I read my blogs – most of which are political in nature – and get angry. I see things in my daily life that make me angry – hateful misogyny, self-serving racism, ruthless economic exploitation, and on and on and on.

On the one hand, I think that’s a good thing – “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention” is a truth I live by. While I’m not glad that I’m angry, I’m glad that I have some sort of response to the oppression and mistreatment that goes on every single day in this world. I’m glad I notice at least some of all this, and that I have a visceral response that this world isn’t right. If I can still feel outrage – and thus, a desire to change things – then I know I’m still human, and not totally numb or complacent.

Read the rest…

Dear Feminists:

I’d like to propose a truce on this whole “sex wars” thing. It’s a battle that’s been raging since before my time, but that doesn’t mean it has to go on forever. No matter how we define ourselves, at the core of it we all want women to be treated as people, right? We want to end oppression, right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if feminism had to be summed up in one sentence it would be fair to say that feminists “seek to end oppression” perhaps throwing in a comment on how feminism’s focus tends to be on gender.

So why do we have to tear into each other when it comes to… well, everything, really. But, talking about the sex wars, why is it when one of us makes a post on the sex work industry, it all too often is addressed to the “opposing side” which isn’t, as one would think, the industry itself, but rather the feminists who take a different approach?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that women shouldn’t be the focus of this battle. And by that I mean we shouldn’t target them — we should target the sex work industry. When talking to feminists outside of our particular mindset, what’s to be gained by dragging the conversation down into the pros/cons of being a sex worker, or watching porn, or whatever? All it does is make it personal, therefore obscuring any useful conversation that could have taken place about the human rights abuses that do happen.

Listen, when it comes down to it, whether or not women should do sex work is a theoretical debate. The fact is, for good or ill, women do. And, even if you believe that no woman would freely choose that, it’s an ending point, not a starting one. If we want to stop the oppression, we gotta start with the begining, and it’s one I think we can all agree on: our sexual culture is hostile to women. Before we do anything, we have to change that.

So, are we going to sit here complaining about women and each other, or are we going to look into ways of changing the sexual culture so that the sex work industry can’t degrade, dehumanize, and traffic in the women unfortunate enough to not have a choice in how they work? Are we going to address pornography, not in terms of ban/not-ban, but rather in terms of critiquing content and treatment of the actors? What about looking at how popular culture feeds into and is influenced by sexual culture, and how that culture has a different standard for women than for men?

Respecting women starts with respecting each other.

What do you do when someone makes a claim of personal experience that just isn’t believable? Specifically, do you accuse them of fabricating the claim?

I’m sure many of you have heard by now about the anti-choice blogger who mistook an Onion article for a serious editorial. In a response to that article, he made the claim that the reason he thought the article was genuine was because he would “meet people like her in the field all the time.” Most readers of feminist discussion forums have encountered other experiences of dubious veracity, such as the tale of the poor man harangued for opening a door, or the malicious women’s studies professor who lowers the grades of her male students.

Read the rest…

So my latest infatuation is Terry Moore’s comic Strangers In Paradise, which I discovered through the immensely fun Scans Daily Livejournal community. It’s well-drawn and well-characterized, and is erasing that reluctance to check out indie comics that viewing the hipper-than-thou movie adaptation of Ghost World instilled.

What struck me, though, was a letter to Mr. Moore printed in the second issue of the first run, which asked:

I do have some criticism about the writing… is it me or do you hold a dim view of males?

[Spoilers for the first issue of Strangers in Paradise follow.]

Read the rest…

I want one month in the feminist blogsphere in which none of us attack each other because someone engages in an activity that we personally don’t like. I want one month in which feminists who have differing views on porn, BDSM, and other sexual practices can come together and have a civil conversation that examines the patriarchy’s role in all this instead of flinging shit at each other. I want one month in which we don’t privilege one set of oppression over another, but rather realize that the dynamics of oppression creates a complex and interconnecting web that needs to be tackled both as a whole as well as one thread at a time. I want one month in which the need to be the sole arbiter of Truth is less important than creating a community in which we listen to each other and realize that every person takes a different path to happiness. I want one month for us to celebrate our differences instead of using them to divide us.

For one month. Just one. Fucking. Month. I want us to blame the patriarchy instead of blaming women.

Why isn’t that possible?

So, as y’all should know by now, I currently live in Japan, but I consider my home area to be the Washington and British Columbia areas. My mom lives there and she recently e-mailed me a news article about the formation of GLBT Month in Jefferson County. The reason she did this was because of one letter to the editor that angered her very much.

In a nutshell, Connie Rosenquist, the letter writer, is angry over Jefferson County’s decision to have a GLBT Month. My mother said that most of the responses to the original article were positive, but this negative one pushed her buttons for a reason she couldn’t name. I read it and knew immediately what it was; it was the same attitude that opponents of this proclamation in the original article expressed. An attitude that oppression activists are intimately familiar with.

I’m talking about privilege.

In this case, the ability to believe that one’s privileged state is the “default” and therefore see any attempt at equality as the non-privileged groups to get “special” rights, or to see them as trying to shut you out of “your” community. I’ve taken this on from the perspective of helping potential allies, but now I want to examine exactly why these attitudes are actually harmful to the expressed goals of equality, neutrality, and inclusion.

Read the rest…

Stop it. Stop invalidating me because of my reproductive choices. Stop telling me what is and is not worthy of discussion. Stop calling me names because I have a different sexual expression than you. Stop discriminating against our sisters just because they don’t have the same naughty bits as you. Stop telling women that they should not be allowed to choose their life’s path. And, for the love of little green apples, stop trying to make the only valid path in life the one you want to take.

That’s what the patriarchy does, not us. Get it?

So, stop it. Just fucking STOP IT.

Please do not reproduce this article in full on any other site! This list is modified every so often to fix broken links, add new points, and otherwise update the material. While I appreciate readers’ support in spreading this through the internet, I request that you post no more than an excerpt onto your own site, and that you include a link back to this specific page so that everyone may have the benefit of seeing the most recent material.

Read the rest…

This just in… a Christian who said “Happy Holidays” was read her rights by an angry God Warrior.

dear customer: when i am ringing you up, i do not say happy holidays to upset you. i do not hate christmas. i celebrate christmas myself. i can’t WAIT til christmas comes. i am EXCITED about christmas. but you might not be, and i DON’T WANT YOU TO FEEL EXCLUDED. it’s not because i hate your holiday, your religion, your people or your general welfare. it’s the EXACT OPPOSITE. i care enough not to ass-ume that you are one thing and not another.

i am so, so fucking sick of the asinine phrase “PC”. i am not being POLITICALLY CORRECT, i am being considerate of the fact that BILLIONS OF PEOPLE DO NOT CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS. that goes for ANY term “pc” term. yeah, i say mailperson, not mailman. sometimes when i refer to god, i say she. sometimes i say he. sometimes i say (zomg!) IT. i say handicapped instead of disabled.

it’s something i learned in kindergarten.

it’s fucking called MANNERS and COMMON SENSE.

[From feminist_rage post by alexstra]

More ranting via midlife mama. Libby critiqued an article from the American Prospect Online and asked for opinions. I was foolish enough to think that I could contain my opinion in one little comment. I know, I know, I should be used to the Attack of the 50-line Comment by now. So, I decided to turn my rant/fisk into its own post.

First off, I’m going to steal Libby’s summary of the article:

It’s an article in American Prospect Online that takes all those “opt out” articles seriously. The author, Linda R. Hirshman, a feminist professor, is working on a book about “marriage after feminism.” She interviewed 30 some-odd women whose weddings were announced in the Sunday NY Times over three Sundays in 1996. Most of them, she says, were staying home with their kids 7 or 8 years later. (Actually, 50% were no longer working for pay, and a third were working part time.) : Conservatives contend that the dropouts prove that feminism “failed” because it was too radical, because women didn’t want what feminism had to offer. In fact, if half or more of feminism’s heirs (85 percent of the women in my Times sample), are not working seriously, it’s because feminism wasn’t radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn’t change men, and, more importantly, it didn’t fundamentally change how women related to men.

[From More on the whole opt-out thing by Libby]

Just because I can, I’m going to use the same style of breakdowns as Hirshman uses in her article. Well, also I want to mock her section heads. And we all know I love mocking people and things. Also, all further quotes (unless otherwise noted) come from the article itself.

Read the rest…

If you told me several years ago that I would be accused of being an “oversensitive feminist”, an “embarrassing liberal”, a “lesbian man-hater”, or “self-righteous” to the point of ignoring dissenting viewpoints, all simply because I unapologetically stand up for what I see as right and wrong, I would have laughed at you. Of course, back then I thought all people, except for ones who wanted to hurt others, were feminists and believed in equality of the sexes. What can I say? I was, and still am to a large extent, a naive idealist.

Sure, I can be sanctimonious. Sure, I’m self-righteous. But when did it become a crime to passionately believe in ideals? Why does my criticizing an organization, idea or belief, or espousing my own personal view on the matter translate into me telling everyone that they must believe as I do or die? Why is it okay for other people to dehumanize a group I belong to, such as the GLBT crowd, but ridicule me when I ask them to give me some consideration because the pejoratives make me uncomfortable? And why, oh why, do people feel the need to engage in a divisive discourse simply because they personally think the arguments are extreme? I’m not telling you what to do with your time, bodies, minds, or anything else, people! I’m just asking you to respect mine.

Read the rest…