Tagline: Little Light
Wondering why Queer Dewd? Wondering what happend to Bitch | Lab? Read Why Queer Dewd and Shame Affirmative.
Skip all this. Take me straight to the comment form »
[...] Sometimes, that analysis is taken personally — and perhaps it should be. After all, we’re discussing sexual acts that women do, and perhaps we can’t separate the sex act from the person doing it. Or maybe we can. Maybe this discussion is leaving out entire groups of people who should be included in it. Maybe we should be discussing something else. And that analysis is coming from a lot of different directions, with different feminists reaching all sorts of different conclusions, from “fuck blowjobs” to “fuck feminism,” neither of which is as simplistic as it sounds. [...]
[...] learn. I’d like to think we’re all out here to do the same. -Bryan no comments trackback this article comment on thisarticle [...]
[...] The Politics of Hair Carnival is coming. Maybe even tonight. Probably not. Right now, I’m too depressed over what I read on other’s blogs to really give a shit. My people are being attacked, villified, misrepresented, by a bunch of self-righteous fuckwits. [...]
[...] First of all let’s go with Bitch|Lab’s latest so-so rant in reaction to the Sex-Positivist Melee of ‘06. [...]
[...] And yes B|L, this was put forth by a person claiming to be a sex-positive feminist. Sans any of the various contexts that I needed to be informed about after the Bussel flamewar, Bussel sounded like the sort of anti-fem I hear much too often, lording the right to be victimised while slamming feminists with some really randomised citations (that’s the anti-fems btw, after you add in a shit load of context to Bussel you find out that she’s wasn’t actually lording the right to be victimised, she’s just moulitsas). Yes it’s fucked up that I’m more familiar with common anti-fem arguments than Moulitsas feminist ones (I’m looking at you Levy). [...]
Leave a comment, a trackback from your own blog, or subscribe to an RSS feed for this entry.
"For what it’s worth, I don’t like Bitch Lab, I don’t read her, I don’t think she’s very bright, and I think the main thing she piggybacked on recently was a comment thread to a post she didn’t author. Nice appropriation, that. ... Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better." - Ilyka Damen
"Really, I mean you no personal harm, but please, stop the lying. Stop undermining feminists and feminism. Make your living doing something else." Feminism Gone Wild, Ann Bartow
Listed on Top 10 Sources
"Come for the animal porn, stay for the cultural analysis." Â Michael Berube "I hereby nominate Bitch | Lab for the role of my inadvertent theory djinni." Â Prosphoros
"The sanctimonious Bitch | Lab, a multi-degreed asswipe (with) a tedious blog of regurgitated theory..." Â Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon
Note: This blog is a natural product. Slight variations in spelling and grammar enhance its individual character and beauty and are not to be considered flaws or defects.
On a certain level, I hate to say it, but more and more I believe it’s really true… some of these people just aren’t worth bothering with. It’s like the “Christian” protestors my bf and I tried to interview at the recent gay pride festival… there was no civil discourse with them. They weren’t having it. It didn’t matter how even-keeled I stayed w/ the guy holding the “It’s a pit of hell not a pot of gold at the end of your rainbow” sign - he was all piss and vinegar. It didn’t matter how many times I politely said, “I’m just curious what is the motivation for this tactic, of yelling at people on the street?” - he would evade my question and make some comment about my intellect, my appearance, or how I needed to “go back to [my] boyfriend.”
I get the same feeling dealing w/ some of these “feminists.” And yes, I will use snark quotes. If the shoe fits…
*sigh*
Also, I finished reading Levy’s book today (I didn’t buy that shit; I sat in the bookstore and read it). I’ll have more to say about that later. In summation: jesus panty-sniffing christ.
For example, this thread shows me doing my level best to not be snarky at all because I thought maybe, just maybe, there could actually be a constructive dialogue going on. (Like antiprincess had at her blog that one time, for a fleeting moment.) So I didn’t snark. I didn’t accuse. I didn’t point fingers. I was very careful about my wording. I acknowledged the grievances of other writers.
In return?
More shit throwin’!
Not all of ‘em, mind you, but a whole hell of a lot. I am drowning in the snark. And yet… the overall tone (maybe I’m misreading, but…) seems to be that sex-pos folks are the ones who are most often guilty of ad hominem attacks, categorical declarations, and so on.
Huh???
Where, people.Just show me where.
Ha! B|L, I thought you’d get a real kick out of this quote, from soopermouse, on the afore-linked Alas thread:
What a laff riot!!
Whoa, shit. I missed the comment threads, so while i knew something was up, i didn’t realize it was this…
I like the stuff at punkass, and i think RM had some valid points. The problem for me is that she was making them against the wrong people. Which, as you say, is a major barrier to getting anything done.
I dunno where this leaves us. SexWars 9346 has been just as unresolved as the previous versions….
One of the funny things is, I started following Amanda’s blogging (which led me to Punkass recently) as a consequence of the attempt of a bunch of radfems to disrupt Alas, A Blog, and other feminist blogs that allowed men to post comments. They decided to start attacking me as a consequence of my comments on how sexism should be confronted by women and men together, which was cited as an example of sexist derailment, at which point I got dogpiled by everyone who wanted to befriend the Margins crowd. Amanda was one of the few bloggers in that circle who didn’t — possibly why she was next on the Margins hitlist.
So, I have to admit I’ve been there’s a personal edge to my astonishment that several feminist bloggers are clueless about the meaning of radical feminism.
*hugs*
LOL, the trolling was a success! I have molded B|L in my own image.
Go forth and Snark Oneesan!
Btw, why isn’t Radical Feminism called revolutionary feminism, considering that it inherently requries (as far as FO and B|L have explained it) a belief in patriarchy being defeated one day with an actual revolution?
Is there already a revolutionary feminism or something? Why can’t I be a RadFem without believing in all that other crap?
Fuck off
To which I should add: and not at all in the way you meant for Twisty to fuck off.
FO
Funny thing is, I have been writing a post in my head that there is another fork in radfem emerging.
I started to write this on another thread where I said that a lot of despair is a reaction to the fact that feminism, especially radfeminism, didn’t have an adequate analysis of capitalism.
There’s a whole book on socialist fem, from 1990, that basically explores this idea. Ehrenreich had an excellent analysis of Capitalism without the Father, as was the title of the article.
She said socialist feminism failed b/c it had an inadequate critique of capitalism, that it had focused too much on the persistence of patriarchy as a system. The failure has meant that capitalism has spit up and chewed out radicalism.
And now people are saying, what to do, what to do. And there is this turning inward and eating our own over it all.
Which i think would have been a better analysis of why the culture war is going on within feminism — if RKB was aware of it, but I doubt she is.
Where it’s going to shake out is that radfems will actually have to develop an analysis of capitalism and racism, if they want to survive.
Problem? Socialist feminists like Angela Davis already do that. The list of women of color who’ve working on it is endless. But I see no familiarity in bloglandia with their work. And if there are few women of color who are radfems, then … how could they possibly develop an adequate theory anyway?
I know they haven’t appealed to me from my white working class perspective. And they certainly don’t appeal to me because I think they don’t understand a thing about the relationship betwee sexist opp. and capitalism and racism.
Problem 2: If they don’t address capitalism and racism, they’ll just do it all fucking over again.
Yippee. Go with Dworkin and Pauline Bart. lemmme know how it works out for y’all.
–
In the meantime, there’s some real work do to that involves political organizing and setting up some way for us to avoid the mistakes of a radfem eating of our own.
I’m game. Everyone else?
–
Also, what do you think about this claim RM makes, that we say it must happen in one day.
I don’t think I made this argument. But it’s possible that I did say something somewhere. Maybe someone remembers. I did talk a lot about how people must engage in rhetorical persuasion to — Snap == change consciousness.
And just in another thread I contrasted the radfem demand that feminists use rhetorical persuasion to — snap! — change consciousness with the socialist and marxist approach which is to bring people barely consciouss of their own feiminism into organizing. It’s in political practice where their ideas will change and radicalize. In the meantime, you’re also building a social movement that can actually capitalize on the fissures and cracks opened up by the internal contractiions of capitalism
You know the rave. (phew! I can use shorthand!) LOL
Anyway, do you see yourself as thinking the revo happens overnight?
I know that Morgan is constantly harping about how stupid reformism is. But rmildred wants a reformist radfem.
Do you think its possible?
Curious
You do assume. A lot.
Yes, i did turn the address blog.pulpculture.org into a magical internet mirror for ya to gaze at your loveliness in.
I don’t think I assumed a whole helluva a lot given your responses to me before you blasted off out of here bitching about ‘fuck feminists”. Certainly no more than you did.
No that we’ve thrown some ad hom charges of hypocrisy at one another, can I flash my tits at you and make out with Cheryl in an IM chat as a peace offering. All men will want to see two women sucking face. You’ve gotta love it. I know you do.
—
[1] Wait, I’m gonna make Amber flash em. Mine are scary.
What you’ve missed about this entire thing, while telling me what an ignorant fuck I am regarding feminism, is that I don’t care who or how you fuck, just that whatever we do isn’t above commentary or criticism. Hell, I’m a sub most of the time. Why the fuck would I waste my time trying to dictate the sex lives of others?
Secondly, RKB’s essay was just sloppy. I wish she’d written it better — it could have been really good. What we got was a big, muddled, confusing mess about sister-fucking, which led to more sister-fucking, which led to more sister-fucking, which led to more sister-fucking… I don’t care. Fuck feminism indeed. Between the title of the piece, the tagline, and the actual content? Who are the editors in that place? She ought to be kicking some editorial ass over there.
But really, do what you want to. I genuinely don’t care who you flash or fuck, but don’t sit there smugly believing that you know who I am or where I’m coming from or what I’ve experienced or how you can educate me with your book-learnin’. I usually appreciate your insights, but this time you’ve gone too far with your attempts to peg me — wrongly.
OK. What did I peg you as? We’ll start from square one: what are your precise complaints about what I got wrong about you.
I didn’t charge with with trying to run my sex life. I didn’t charge RM with that either.
If you think I did, it might be a good idea to examine my sentence so i can correct the misunderstanding and take responsibility for my error in poorly communicating my thoughts.
I’ve only started to grapple with “socialist feminism,” as a distinct trend from socialism in general, and so far, I’ve not been moved from my starting point, which was that socialism ought to be understood to involve opposition to sexism, and generally has.
I started reading Abortion and Woman’s Choice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom, by Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, and early on, she tried to explain why she felt both Marxist analysis and feminist analysis was necessary: because Marxism was about collective needs, and you needed feminism to talk about individual needs if you wanted to avoid lapsing into liberalism. This seemed to me a very peculiar distinction, and justified only by her accepting that Stalinism and Maoism were genuinely socialist — which I reject.
I was flying to a conference on socialism at the time, and this was just after Round #1 of the “blow job fracas,” and this led to an interesting train of thought, that desire defines an individual, and that desire is the source of use value, and that therefore this is central to Marxism.
There was an interesting talk, “Capitalism and Sexuality,” which was a follow-up to a talk last year, “Sexuality and Class Struggle,” which I’ve got on MP3, if you’re interested.
I’m not sure if you ever got that email I sent. I’m in the International Socialist Organization, and that’s been the main influence on my thinking. I think in practice we’re pretty good on issues of sexism, but our theory, while sound as far as it goes, could use a lot of work.
What would a reformist feminism be like? I was wrestling with that, then realized there’s a simple answer: that’s what goes by the name of liberal feminism. I believe that liberal feminism and socialism represent the middle class and working class movements against sexism, respectively.
As you put in quite eloquently in this thread on PAB, the history of working class struggle against sexism is completely ignored by middle class feminism, but that goes back to the beginning.
I’m busy trying to organize a revolutionary party, and it feels, frankly, like farming redwoods. At least we’re growing, but too, too slowly. I find the idea that revolutionary politics is a sign of impatience to be grimly amusing.
As an aside, I remember one of the less satisfying texts on socialism and feminism I’d read, from a comrade in the UK in the 80s, had suggested that it was middle class students who would express feminism by dressing in tee-shirts and jeans and foregoing makeup, whereas young working class women tended to be dressed more “properly.” I’d thought that might be a reflection of the period, or a different culture, but your comments on being “femme” make me wonder.
Oops, sorry. Reformist radfem was the question. Well, I’d say that radfem is reformist now.
The only thing thongs liberate people from is pantylines.
B|L I just got done reading your long comment over at PBA on punkass marc’s post–wow! The whole working class women butch/femme androgynous college lesbian thing is so true to my own experience (think I’ve blogged about it). YOu just broke it down the way it needed to be done.
That’s why you’re at the top of my bookmarks, girl.
I used to feel like I wasn’t a very good lesbian because making love with somebody whose body had no true definition, when there wasn’t that needed tension, was nice but just that…nice and comforting. cuz you know, I was indoctrinated by the college lesbians who were my first exposure to dykedom (except they didn’t use the word dyke) and didn’t realize my true femme nature and cravings.
I need a sugar daddy. Lol.
OK. What did I peg you as?
Reread your entire armchair analysis and start from word one. That’s a good beginning.
Ok, I assumed you were white. I assumed you were a man. I assumed you came here to lecture me about what Ariel levy’s thesis was after I wrote about her on PAB.
Thus, I can assume you are black, female, and were not here to tell me what Ariel Levy’s thesis was but to engage in a long, mutually exciting, enlightening, and friendly discussion over tea and scones, with our pinkies pointing gracefully skyward, our lips pursed delicately sipping tea while murmuring how thrilling it is to have found one another at last: two people who have actually read levy three times.
I’m utterly nipply with excitement over the fantasy. And crap, my shorts are moist. *sigh* more laundry.
I should probably wear a thong to catch the moisture whenever I’m blessed with the opportunity to fantasize about our tea and scone dreamdates.
@ Cassandra
O!I freeball it! saves money, too.
[...] Sometimes, that analysis is taken personally — and perhaps it should be. After all, we’re discussing sexual acts that women do, and perhaps we can’t separate the sex act from the person doing it. Or maybe we can. Maybe this discussion is leaving out entire groups of people who should be included in it. Maybe we should be discussing something else. And that analysis is coming from a lot of different directions, with different feminists reaching all sorts of different conclusions, from “fuck blowjobs” to “fuck feminism,” neither of which is as simplistic as it sounds. [...]
Christ on a broken pogo stick. Best comment I’ve read in weeks.
I treaded the waters of “claiming” to be a feminist once, only once. I was brow-beaten so badly by pseudo-friends, relatives even my then-boyfriend…I stopped using the term. The idea that feminists are power-hungry bitches or girlie-looking lesbians is a farce. What I’m attempting to say is, I empathize with your anger. It is so called for and a pleasure to read about it.
[...] learn. I’d like to think we’re all out here to do the same. -Bryan no comments trackback this article comment on thisarticle [...]
I genuinely don’t care
ahhh the leper’s bell of the losing flame-artist.
The whole PAB thing seemed like a reactive dogpile; you went after one of theirs, so they went after you. Logic and context had little, if anything, to do with what went down, it was just tribal politics.
That being said, don’t pretend to engage if you’re not, you know, going to make an effort. And if you are going to make an effort, do a privilege check first, please, and then try to actually listen.
At the risk of sounding like a kid on the playground though…. they started it.
*ducks*
Well, you know, they did.
The hateful personal attacks spewed by RM and punkass marc? Those came outta nowhere. People called them out on their bullshit, and they responded by lobbing more ad hominems.
I was, and remain, genuinely flabbergasted.
Correction to 24: you went after one of their own’s arguments, so they went after you.
At least, that’s how it came across to me.
@B|L “In the meantime, there’s some real work do to that involves political organizing and setting up some way for us to avoid the mistakes of a radfem eating of our own.
I’m game. Everyone else?”
Well I am, and in fact I’m already a member of an organisation, but as we are living a few thousand miles apart, I can’t really suggest you come to the meeting on Palestine/Lebanon on tuesday and we could have a drink and talk it over.
But the question arises : are there any political organisations in your area you’d consider joining ? What are your thoughts on those you know about ? Specifically, given your political profile, the marxist left ? I know that it can be hard to have a clear idea of organisations you know only from their website.
On this note,
@Foolish Owl
Hey comrade ! I’m in the LCR ( http://www.lcr-rouge.org ) and have been following the ISO press and activity with great interest. Don’t give up the good work, it’s needed more than ever !
@B|L
Also, (addressed to Foolish Owl, but I’m interested)
“Anyway, do you see yourself as thinking the revo happens overnight?”
I’m not sure the big difference between radfems and marxists is on the possible speed of change, but on its basis, as you explained.
However there is something inherently pessimistic in radfem : women have been oppressed forever, because men want to oppress them, so why should they change now ?
Marxists don’t think the revolution itself happens in one day -nevermind the change in ideas that would accompany it, but we should still defend that progress in consciousness can indeed be very rapid in a revolutionary situation, as history shows : white male racist and sexist workers can shed their prejudices quite quickly when they find themselves in the midst of a common fight with black and women workers against a common ennemy. To take an exemple fresh in my memory, the common fight of white and ethnic minority youth against job insecurity (CPE) recently did much more to fight racism in France than any amount of preaching : students who might have gone their separate ways after class, white students who might have thought muslims were conservative, or blacks violent had to organise together to occupy their universities, and rally as many people as they could to support them : black white, north african. In that process they had to go beyond their prejudices, and question them. Also young women have played a very active role, which has helped to fight ideas of female passivity.
Here’s a nice picture : http://tintinrevolution.free.fr/stuff/cpe.jpg
I’m utterly nipply with excitement over the fantasy. And crap, my shorts are moist. *sigh* more laundry.
Excellent. I do what I can.
Also, you did get a couple of things right on that list. Bravo.
@ FO and ilestre
awesome stuff.
just a correction, though. I was referring to R Mildred’s comment above where she says that Foolish Owl and I think that the radfem revolution happsn over night.
I was wondering if Foolish Owl thinks that. I was also wondering if any one saw me say this anywhere, or seriously imply it. I wouldn’t want to correct that one b/c I obviously don’t mean overnight, or even a month or a year.
The happening overnight business isn’t important, but what is important to a radfem analysis is that you get the maximum numbers on the klew train.
i
Didna want a bash fest for the fuck of it, legit crits, etc. is great. i just didn’t want this to be, “oh you are so right and they’re so wrong”
what i was really upset about was the various assumptions about what poor women’s lives are like throughout the discussion on sex workers. the erasure of femmes and bis. the constant insistance on taling only about how patriarchy is the only problem as if there isn’t racism and capitalism.
I just had to evict the bee up my bonnet or otherwise I might be tempted to break some windows.
which wouldna be cool — coz then it’d be hot. and hot in Limpdick in the summertise sucks.
Also, just as an aside though no one is prob reading,
does anyone else’s dog fail to understand how to lift it’s leg properly and then proceed to pee a stream down his front leg?
he’s such an ass. he tucks that leg right up there so delicately, and then whiz straight down the leg like a dope.
This is why I’m a cat person…
A pleasure to make your acquaintance, ilestre. We’ve got some of LCR’s posters from the protests against the CPE on the walls of our office in San Francisco.
After having taken a gander and now commented (to no avail no doubt, but what the fuck) on the Alas thread, I also would like to break things.
not that I would try to reason with the likes of “soopermouse,” g-m-r, or a few other of the posters there.
but goddam. the stupidity: it burns, it BUURRRRNNNNNSSS
BL: mebbe your dog actually wants that effect?
(HOTT! ONANISTIC! CANINE! GOLDEN SHOWERS!!)
o sorry sorry.
Adrien: you’re right, and so is Amber.
a lot of knees jerking all around.
and a lot of assumptions being made (going all the way back to the RKB article and the assumptions about who “Levy” might or might not be referring to without checking first. and the annoyance at RKB presumably being sloppy; and the annoyance about the posts *she’s* riffing off of making assumptions and being careless, and so on, and so on, and…)
It sucks that people who probably agree on like 98% of shit are (as I’m reading it) at each other’s throats; but, well, life’s rich tapestry.
and BL: for the record: I think you’re swell.
per the radfem revolution, or any other:
regardless of how long it takes or how many sacrifices (and whose) need to be made, first thing I want to know before I get on board is what exactly is the goal here.
I mean, really specifically.
–oh jeezus FO, I never realized *you* were on the evil MRA/troll/antifem/whatthefuckever blacklist.
goddam but some people are incredibly fucking irritating.
and no i will NOT say That Name ever again, but I remember…
well.
ask not for whom the troll bells.
fuckin’ A.
that whole Alas thing was so -lame,- anyway. it’s like: excuse me? do you not have boards and blogs of your very very own? do you go to other peoples’ parties and start demanding that they throw all these other horrid people (whom they may have specifically invited) out?
the problem with the Left–hell, the entire goddam world, really, today, I am convinced, is that far too few people are willing to say, simply, in response to blatant asshattery:
“No. Piss off.”
Bitchlab wrote:
>So, now we have Mildred declaring a host of activities and objects as “objectively patriarchal.†It doesn’t work that way. All she does is make an assertion. There is no argument as to *why* these things are patriarchal. Jesus.>
A thought:
When I specifically asked her what she meant by that, R Mildred wrote:
>Fellatio can be a tool of the patriarchy, and twisty and pony and the others who were saying they didn’t like fellatio (which is very much a marginalized view) were saying so because their experiences of fellatio were all highly oppressive, and I pointed out that this doesn’t ahve to be so if you do it correctly.>
I think what happened is that Twisty, R Mildred and others had posted the beginning of their theory without any followup explanation (like the paragraph above). I believe it’s still possible to have that discussion, but the name-calling is gonna have to end before that happens. I’m not sure the name calling will end any time soon.
IMHO, the radfems got it wrong because they didn’t hang in there and explain their position enough for the rest of us to get it.
IMHO, Bitchlab, you also got it wrong because you stopped at this thought “All she does is make an assertion.” You are correct in describing what occurred. But I believe you were incorrect when you assumed that means there simply is no argument for the radfem POV.
I made this same assumption, too, which is why I started out agreeing with you. Now I’m thinking there is a good discussion that we’re missing because each “side” is basing their opinions on an incomplete assessment of the other side.
FTR, I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and really appreciate your analysis and your posts analyzing your feminist reading. I have read the big red Rad Fem book and I’m surprised you didn’t mention the PoMo quiz in the back. I thought that was hilarious.
As for where we’re going, I’ve read some Teresa Ebert on “Red Feminism” that I found intriguing, although most of it is way over my head. Here’s a page you can visit:
http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/.....page1.html
Reading a couple of those threads, I think the problem is the same linguistic problem that is responsible for (my estimate) haalf to two thirds of the political problems of the Left. It’s the idea that it ever makes sense to judge a statement based on the effect that it will have on the wider debate of society, rather than on whether it’s “basically accurate” or “basically bollocks”. The number of people saying “well, I called X a Y because I think it’s important to support that sort of attitude and thinking if we are going to achieve Z ludicrously farfetched goal”. You would have thought that the million and one disasters that this sort of behaviour has caused over the years would have got across the lesson that honesty is the best policy but nooo.
I wasn’t banned from Alas, just widely criticised for having used my “male privilege” to post an off-topic message — which was in response to a question asked by a radfem, anyway. I remain bemused that Barry remains committed to maintaining civil discourse between different bands of lunatics who want to kill him. He keeps reminding me of Salvador Allende.
Argh. Swedish model. Yep, more police would solve everything. It’s not like there’s some history of police being sexist or racist or anything.
Adrien
OK, go after 1 member, others jump into protect. yes. No big deal to me. Happens all the time.
Here’s a little problem I have, though.
I point out that I think RM is da bomb. Then I criticize her.
Then Dreamdate McBoing {!!!} is all aggressive about it.
I’m kinda figuring that RM is a tough ass, just like me. She can dish it out and take it with the best of them.
In turn, I get the impression that, like me, she thinks that ripping someone a new asshole is really no big deal. That you can ream Twisty out and a month later, ain’t no thang. Have a beer, shoot a game of pool, shake hands. Still great allies. May still rip you a new on next month, but hey, what are friends for?
Good.
Let’s keep it that way.
BL,
Bingo. People are not their arguments. That, I think, is a recurrent stumbling block, and once it gets to feeling personal, reason seems to bleed out.
# Ravenmn Says:
thanks Ravenmn. That’s interesting, but I can honestly say that this isn’t what is going on. I could provide the radfem argument if I choose. But it’s not my responsibility. In fact, on another issue, when addressing Amber, I explained what seemed I figured the countering position was to her argument, even though I agreed.
the ability to do that — take on another’s argument at a moment’s notice (if I know it) is a big thing with me. that is why i lurv theory. i gives me thrills and chills and I blame my mother for always looking at both -10 - 100 sides.
What seems to have happened is that no one carried out. We are two days into it, and I’m waiting. I understand busy, so I figure she’s got her hands full.
But, here’s the thing: anticipating how you’ll be criticized and forestalling them by actually offering the explanation first is a good idea! (that’s why it’s good to also know the other side’s position. it’s kinda self-serving.)
——–
another thing I don’t get is the response of people who say, “Oh, don’t get upset. Just tell the ppl who you disagree with to fuck off. Or just shrug and move on.”
This is just such flabby pluralism that is meaningless.
What is the point? why bother? why stick your opinion out there and assert it and stroke and love it all up?
Exhibitionism?
and the response tot that kind of thing is to say, “Oh, I’m not going to whip my assertion out and stroke it. I’ll keep it in my pants and be a big girl about it” makes sense how?
I mean makes sense if you just don’t like conflict or don’t think any consensus can ever be achieved.
But then, what’s the point?
If raising consciousness means that you just run around spouting your opinion and really dont’ expect anyone to care what it is, this makes sense how again?
Because why share?
>I could provide the radfem argument if I choose. But it’s not my responsibility. >
Yeah, that’s true. But are you sure that the argument you or I think a RadFem would make is the same one Twisty or RM would make? I don’t know and I’m not willing to make that assumption.
>What seems to have happened is that no one carried out. We are two days into it, and I’m waiting. I understand busy, so I figure she’s got her hands full.>
I’m guessing the delay is about being defensive from the attacks.
Personally, I could have joined in those attacks myself. I got the sense that Twisty isn’t really into linear thinking. She’s into incitement in a way I don’t understand. It’s an environment I don’t want to be in.
But then, I’m a marxist, not an anarchist. I don’t think tossing bombs at power brokers is productive. Bomb throwing is what Twisty is about and is the point Punk Marc seems to be making when he says (with friendly amendment) “whiteness sucks.”
Linear thinking and logical arguments, including:
>anticipating how you’ll be criticized and forestalling them by actually offering the explanation first is a good idea!>
is something I’m not expecting to receive from those who lob bombs. They have deliberately not chosen to argue logically or quickly at this time. That doesn’t mean we can assume they are incapable or that the logical and quick argument does not exist.
Damn, I wish I could say these things in shorter bursts.
@ Ravemn
I don’t think they are incapable. I am thinking the best of them and I’m not assuming that they have intentions such as throwing bombs or just want to shitstir. Until I see otherwise, and I’ll probably wait a long time to make the conclusions.
And I think it’s irrelevant that their argument might be different. Because I want to know what it is so I can learn something and maybe rethink the way I think or just understand why they think I’m wrong — the reasons, not the assertion, “you’re wrong”.
Ooooo boy on the anarchist thing. Do you know chucko at all? he’d probably be yanked with that! LOL
Ravemn
Seriously I have to ask.
You think I assume that they have no argument — attributing motivations I don’t have because you are not a mindreader.
And yet, it’s ok for you to think they just throw bombs?
I may have to scratch my ass ’til I bleed to understand that one.
>I don’t think they are incapable.>
Nor do I.
>You think I assume that they have no argument  attributing motivations I don’t have because you are not a mindreader.>
No. I quoted you:
>All she does is make an assertion.>
View it as a tactical question rather than a philosophical debate. I hear Twisty and, in particular, Punk Marc, claiming there is value in saying irritating things (i.e. “blowjobs suck”). I hear them arguing that it is a tactic that can counteract the power of patriarchal (or racist, or capitalist) conditioning.
Calling that “bomb-throwing” is my claim and mine alone. I’m not attributing it to them, I’m using an analogy: that tactic seems like bomb-throwing to me.
My own history is from tactical battles with anarchists during Gulf War One. That’s why I recognize similarities between those arguments and what I’m reading on this issue. It’s difficult because, like you, I’d rather have the discussions without all the fireworks (a pun!).
>And I think it’s irrelevant that their argument might be different. Because I want to know what it is so I can learn something and maybe rethink the way I think or just understand why they think I’m wrong  the reasons, not the assertion, “you’re wrongâ€Â.>
Exactly! It’s what I want as well. They’ve heard your request and my request.
For whatever reason, providing answers to you and me is not a priority for them. Maybe they will use tactics you and I like in the future, but for today they are not.
>I’m not assuming that they have intentions such as throwing bombs or just want to shitstir>
Really? Even Twisty? Because I read a lot of arguments (damn, I’m not gonna remember where exactly–maybe at The Margins) that people “should have known” Twisty would attack them because that’s Twisty’s persona at IBTP. That’s when I realized I was over my head and in a place that makes me uncomfortable.
Anyway, I hate that I’m sounding like I’m coming down on you, because I think we look at the world in similar ways.
I don’t know Chucko, but we’d probably clash. I’ve built good relations with the local anarchists, even though they consider “leftists” the enemy and I’m definitely a leftist.
Stop scratching that ass! You’ll go blind.
I’m with Amber- sometimes you’re just not going to be heard and, painfully, this is one of those times, as was made obvious by that thread on Alas. It didn’t matter what Amber said, what argument she refuted, etc. It didn’t matter what sources Belledame posted. I’m afraid that maybe we’re really not on the same team after all.
Ravenm
man. if i ever write that damn book on radical social movements, I am indebted to your ass for these insights.
well, actually, a lot of people here, but this is damn schwwwwwwweeeeeeeet.
I didn’t think you were attacking me, but I thought you were attacking them and I didn’t get it.
When I say, “all there are is assertions” it was just a challenge and a complaint that people write reams and reams and you dn’t find an argument and you think, uh, what the fuck. why did you waste my time?
I think that, as you say, stirring shit is engaging in logical fallacy as a substitute for argument.
sometimes, I wish I’d never spent all those years working on civic democracy projects because I saw exactly how far what you call bomb throwing got us: nowhere, whereas I saw a more Habermasian approach work far better.
And since it has real damn consequences for, in this case, fighitinga radioative waste dump and trying to figure out how a town could get it’s collective asses out of severe economic recession — and to ask if that’s possible at all (you’re a Marxist, you know what I’m getting at i bet)
I don’t think it’s fucking funny.
Tee. Fucking. Hee. It is so clever. I am so funny. Ho Ho Hee Hee.
I’m rolling on the floor laughing at myself at how I’ve stirred the shit, meanwhile …. people are really dying!
I threw that last bit in there for Belledame, as a self mocking joke and ref to my arguments about how the rhetoric of crisis drives radical social movements (radfems, anarchists, etc.)
My serious point is something I said at punkass:
In order for us to get from here to there, I think we need to forge some of the qualities of consciousness, tools, infrastructure for discussion and debate, self- and social introspection, etc. etc.
but not just to get from here to there, but because as we forge those tools, together, we learn to be democratic participants in civil society. We learn how to create our own rules for our small communities. And learning how to do that will serve us well in “utopia”.
When we build those things, if things ever do get to the point where we overthrow all these systems of oppressions, they will serve us well in a world where we will engage in a fully participatory and substantie democracy,
In a world where we have to get to gether and reason out how we should live our collective lives together, rather than pulling levers in a voting booth and crossing our fingers.
Shit stirring, in my very down to earth experience in the community Imention, did nothing to advance anything. It caused endless chaos, antagonisms, acrimony, hurt, anger, and everything fell into despair.
It was only when we finally introduced what I called “transitional objects” that we could finally, finally make some headway.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a whole lot more producitve than the provocations that had gone on before. People still argued. They still didn’t agree but they forged something that they could share between them — the transitional object — a valued dialogic community to which they belonged and with which they identified. They wanted to be a part of it.
Shit stirring created isolated little communities that were oriented toward the punishing provacteurs.
Zizek writes about this in an essay about how anarchists end up having hidden leaders in spite of all attempts to avoid that.
Jo Freeman wrote about the same in the early second wave. It’s a seminal essay on the topic.
Didn’t work for them then, and it won’t work for us now.
But I can totally see how this is in line with the radfem vision of Robin Morgan and Andrea Dworkin. When I get out the book that burns my ass (have to check it from the library to finish reading that is why i didn’t address the pomo quiz), I will quote Dworkin on exactly this: she thinks the movement needs shit stirrers.
BUT she also thinks the movement needed the center.
Apparently, people like Jill at Feministe are supposed to carry water for the shit stirrers.
Ain’t it grand.
EL and others:
Shoudl I read the thread at Alas, or will I want to slit my wrists? I mean seriously, i have loads to do and this is depressing and distracting. I want to be like Jill and see it as all good. I’m tryin’. I’m tryin’.
—
And Ravemn, if I had cash I would throw money at you by the millions. Thank you so fucking much for pushingme on this one. Man, you sent me off on a rant connecting some dots, though it’s not the best in terms of concrete examples because I didn’t want to ramble on for pages. But damn.
I will have to go through that line by line and parse out the good quotes from marc and Rmildred.
I have an idea for a feminist theory book that is perfuctamundo! Like I will ever write it, but hey, a girl can dream!
–
There was an argument circulating about how we shouldn’t be so sensitive about having our fem street cred taken away by a simple declaration or even by a criticism of something we personally do as possibly not especially feminist or a reinscription of patriarchy.
but I think we are all saying that, we know this already. I personally find it a patronizing argument because it treats our criticisms as if they were spoken by two year olds.
So I’m wondering this.
It’s somehow OK to criticize, but when you point out that the criticism comes from a particular place in the feminist continuum or whatever we call it and that the other person might simply be imposing their version of it on us and that we have legit disagreements about central concepts and so forth, then our criticisms are seen as being aghast that we’ve been criticized at all.
Um. Like I’m surprised people think that blow jobs are patriarchal?>
This is fucknutted.
What irks, is that the speaker, even when she recognizes differences, refuses to preface her comments with a recognition of that fact.
And thus, she ends up coming off as if she is policing what counts as feminism.
She doesn’t have to call you out as not a feminist. She just does it with the presumption that she doesn’t have to specfiy that this is her argument, that others disagree, etc. eetc.
Too much to ask, I guess.
Actually, at this point, I am just finding the Alas thread amusing (and it seems to have fizzled, at least for the time being). But maybe that’s just bc I’ve been following it for the past 2 days. Dunno.
It’s certainly no worse than some of the stuff at, say, witchy-woo’s blog, or some of the recent punkass threads.
Unless it’s changed dramatically in the last few hours, my sense of that thread on Alas was that it was pretty much the same argument we were having two years ago, with mostly the same people making the same arguments in the same way.
McBoing
I do think that, by not bothering to consider other possibilities for why I might say “fuck femnists” that you are somewhat ignorant of internal critiques of feminism.
big deal. maybe you didn’t read everything i wrote, so you didn’t realize that poverty is a significant factor. But I think I wrote it from the get go and I think that should have signalled to anyone familiar with critiques of the whiteness and middle classness of feminism that this might be what i was talking about.
but even if you didn’t know, what has bothered me is that you keep tellingme that I thinkyou are telling me how to fuck.
I have NOT said one word to that effect. I have argued that RMildred’s tactics with the first piece used logical fallacy and i think that’s not warranted.
I argued that she engaged in biphobia and the erasure of femmes (and apparently I’ve erased your identity but it seems to me you want it erased. go with jesus.) Rachel Kramer Bussell is a public figure and it’s easy to find out information about her.
But this fits a pattern with RM, she did the same thing to twisty, assuming she’d never been with a man. This bespeaks someone who’s never bothered to pay enough attention to lesbians to know that a lot of us end up being with men before we come out. adn you can especially figure that this will be the case with older women.
Just like owning fatphoobia she can own that. Just like I can own pegging your identity by making assumptions. Or, you can both flip me the bird just as you recommend everyone else does.
My criticisms of what you remain regardless as to who you are. I was irritated most because I assumed you were a man and that just exacerbated it. I would be irritated even if you were a woman.
And, you hae been nothingbut hostile in this space. I’m unclear, how it is that a reasonable critique of Rmildred is something that you can’t deal with, given the hostility that drips from her digits. Above, she says she is doing it on purpose to get a rise out of everyone. Tee. Hee.
marc is the only one who seems to realize that if rm wants to dish it out, she better take it right back.
So, if you could criticize me for something other than the claim that I think you want to run my sex life, that’d be great.
I don’t think that. I have a problem with the way Rmildred thinks, apparently, that shit stirring is productive.
I’ve made an argument above as to why it isn’t.
Oh, and need I remind, to borrow Rmildred’s logic: I’m just saying. You dont’ have to take it personally. You can flip me the bird.
isn’t that fucking productive?
why did any of us bother to say anything to anyone else then?
If you shit stir to criticize practices as sexist and then say no one has to listen to you, this makes sense how exactly?
RM can speak for herself, of course, but if anyone could enlighten, fabulous!
Bbecause that was the question that started all this.
adn I still haven’t gotten an answer as to why it makes sense other than to fuck with people for their own enjoyment.
Enjoy your fucking sympton.
Ravemn:
::I’m guessing the delay is about being defensive from the attacks.::
Which is interesting if true and I’m not sure it is. You can admire twisty for basically smirking and staying out of it all and then taking another sideswipe at ‘em and mocking them for falling for her bait. At least she didn’t get defensive.
She is Teh Awesomest Troll.
[...] The Politics of Hair Carnival is coming. Maybe even tonight. Probably not. Right now, I’m too depressed over what I read on other’s blogs to really give a shit. My people are being attacked, villified, misrepresented, by a bunch of self-righteous fuckwits. [...]
Shitstirring is an interesting subject. Fundamentally it is a political practice which arises out of despair (a bit like bomb-throwing, indeed, but still with less dramatic consequences so I wouldn’t push the analogy too far). It arises out of the belief that no alliance with whom you’re speaking with can be formed.
Of course this is quite different to standing firm and talking back, which doesn’t arise from the desire to provoke but out of the necessity of defending oppressed groups if we are to found any worthwhile alliance for change.
So it is no accident shitstirring is a tactic linked to radfem and other outposts of separatism. The practice goes with the theory. Sharon Smith explains this link rather effectively in her excellent article at http://pubs.socialistreviewind...../smith.htm
I wrote a longish comment on this stuff here, but I just wanted to send you some love, too. In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” there’s a catch phrase: “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” I think it means “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” That.
>Because I read a lot of arguments (damn, I’m not gonna remember where exactly–maybe at The Margins) that people “should have known†Twisty would attack them because that’s Twisty’s persona at IBTP.
And -that- is one of yer classic apologetics for abuse/bullying.
fuck that noise.
Foolish Owl
thanks for all the insightful information, and yes I still have your email. I think right after you sent that, I got sick and my dad got sick and life was al ittle wacky.
And yes, I think a reformist radical fem is what liberal fem already is.
OTOH, do you give any credence to the difference between various shades of marxish thought where, for example, some groups split with the notion of revolutionary struggle and seek to bring about socialism more slowly?
@ilestre
There is precious little here by way of radical organization. I’m really talking about creating something new, not grabbing on to something already existing.
I really think that GayleRubin is right, though I’m taking it further than she is: feminism will never develop an adequate address to sexuality and something new has to be forged.
[...] First of all let’s go with Bitch|Lab’s latest so-so rant in reaction to the Sex-Positivist Melee of ‘06. [...]
I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking, but it sounds like the classic “reform or revolution” question, as in Luxemburg’s book by that title. In which case, I’d have to say that there’s no avoiding revolutionary struggle if you want to achieve socialism. But, there’s no sign of a socialist revolution on the horizon in the US, and the main question of the day is the appalling weakness of left and working class organization.
On the other hand, if you mean, what do I think of groups that are quiet about their socialist goals — well, it’s almost a daily occurrence that I’ll talk to someone who will whisper to me that they think of themselves as socialist, but they couldn’t possibly tell people that, or no one would listen to them. It would be a little bit of help if, at the very least, they could come out of the closet. (And that analogy comes up a lot.)
I think radfem is failing because it has tranmogrified into this strange creature of moral superiority .
The excuses for we should have known are this new wave of these feminists being kind of lazy in their thoughts and the rise of sarcasm as humor. When someone (I.e you BL) puts more thought and less self congratulatory evil in their post they find a bunch of class codified terms that don’t adress the critiques made but illustrate that the critiquer is uneducated ( dumb) if they arent able to fight the double prong o fnot knowing the new only them special term for the jargon and taking stuff seriously that shouldn’t be ( in their opinion).
So this feminist discussion becomes both class coded and not all that important and who wouldn’t want to participate in that? besides anybody with other things to do and places where they cna get reall support and engagement.
Rock on sistergirl Dman im sad im out of codine
If I may butt in again on reform/revolution, it’s in any case outside to know who really is a revolutionary outside of a revolutionary situation. Very often when one arises you suddenly find some erstwhile vocal “revolutionaries” going all coy, and up-to-then “reformists” moving left at record pace. I’m not saying that a thorough revolutionary understanding is not a very useful thing, but it seems to me that it is not necessarily a useful delimitation in the US right now, where the main question is how to have a mass party independent of big business, able to confront the Democrats and Republicans by defending the rights of workers and the oppressed, and shift the political agenda leftwards. Within that framework revolutionaries and reformists could collaborate in order to boost the strength of the working class and hopefully end up creating a situation where the “reform or revolution” question becomes an immediate concrete one.
Hiya Bitchlab,
I got as far as the first paragraph before coming down to type this, as I have been eager to throw you my appreciation for some time and can’t find a right proper thread, so thanks for making it easy.
I thought I knew all about feminism from an experiential and auto-didactic orientation, til I started reading here, where I find answers and direction regarding questions, loose ends and lingering wtf’s. I like theory in general, and a multi-perspective approach, and that’s what I find here, so always put on a fresh pot of coffee before settling in, and come away with so much more than I went in with, and am always catching up, but you don’t lose me, and that’s guidance. Your conversational and directive approach stimulates interest, and motivates me to learn.
You are fighting a good fight, with head and heart, and your decency is palpable.
I admire and support your work.
Take care,
Robin
[...] And yes B|L, this was put forth by a person claiming to be a sex-positive feminist. Sans any of the various contexts that I needed to be informed about after the Bussel flamewar, Bussel sounded like the sort of anti-fem I hear much too often, lording the right to be victimised while slamming feminists with some really randomised citations (that’s the anti-fems btw, after you add in a shit load of context to Bussel you find out that she’s wasn’t actually lording the right to be victimised, she’s just moulitsas). Yes it’s fucked up that I’m more familiar with common anti-fem arguments than Moulitsas feminist ones (I’m looking at you Levy). [...]
Okay, so I have to ask:
What does “Moulitsas” mean?
BD -=- thought it was a ref to Daily Kos. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. The punkass crew don’t like his politics.