Monday, February 05, 2007

One of these things is not like the others

From Elizabeth over at Screw Bronze!

Is feminism about the rights of all women, or just the “right” women? Does human rights apply to all; and when it doesn’t, what does that say about how we view the excluded group? Those two questions have been bothering me since September when I started to do research for a blog on the transgender day of remembrance; the day in November when people are asked to remember the dozens of transgendered people killed annually for…breathing. And as I researched I came across stories and statistics that shocked me. Studies from the US’s most T-friendly city San Francisco saying even there, a transgendered person’s likelihood of getting a full time job was minimal, and the chance of ever making enough to purchase a house or condo almost non-existent. I will stop now before I go on and on about what I found (Which I will blog later) but what floored me was when, with consistent regularity, charities set up to help the people who NO ONE ELSE would help, were refusing to help, in particular, transgendered females. What does it mean, I asked myself, when for 10 years, a shelter to stop those people considered expendable by society from freezing to death, refuse to let transgendered females enter? What does it mean when organizations dedicated to helping ANYONE refuse to help transgendered? Or when a creed or society which is set up to help ANY woman, excludes transgendered women?

...But now I want to talk about the crime of being an intersex woman. You may not be aware it was a crime. I knew it was something most people don’t talk about but I wasn’t aware it was a crime either until the State of Wyoming told me so. In case you are wondering why I care; I believe that by learning and caring about the struggles and concerns of ALL women, I will be enriched (discouraged at times, but enriched). What happened is that Miki Ann Dimarco was born intersex and had hormone and some genital corrective surgery growing up. Though that was limited because she had been abandoned by her parents and raised in a variety of foster homes. In 1998, she was picked up and found guilty of passing bad checks worth $742.85. Two years later during probation she failed a drug test and was sentenced to what should have been 14 months in very minimum security prison. That was, until, during a strip search prison officials found a tiny penis; then upon testing found she had XY chromosomes. Up until now, everyone in the justice system considered Miki Ann to be female (since she had lived that way since puberty), but now there was visual evidence of her intersex condition. Later prison officials would say that she had been determined to be “male” without either contesting her childhood medical treatment as an intersex female or contesting the THREE ex-husbands she had. The problem was, where to house her? Not in the men’s prison, they decided. Not with the minimum security women’s prison they decided, though she was judged a non-risk and non-violent offender. In panic they placed her in total solitary containment which meant placing her in Pod 3 where four confinement cells existed for the most extreme, uncontrollable and violent offenders. The cells were small holding only a cot and toilet. Cement Floors and cinderblock walls. No chair. No shelf. No personality amenities. Even watches, clocks or a deck of playing cards was prohibited. She could only emerge from her cell when no other prisoners were present. No contact meant she ate in her cell, she could not use the gym, she could not attend AA, not visit the law or general library, not attend religious services, not have regular visitors, and not qualify for work release programs or even talk to other inmates.

And there she stayed for the next 438 days, her full term, despite appealing for a move in housing every 90 days.

...Jan. 24th 2007, the 10th circuit court of appeals decided that the 14th amendment which protects “suspect classes” from discrimination which includes race and women does not include “intersex.” If she had been treated worse than other prisoners because she was female, that would have broken the 14th amendment, but because she was treated differently, including NOT being treated like a female because she was intersex, that was legal. He also overturned the award stating that since the penal system hadn’t faced someone like her before, essentially, whatever they did was good enough. Yes, the judge determined, she was treated badly, but not constitutionally badly enough. He overturned the $1,000 and ordered Miki Ann Dimarco to repay court costs. Since filing the original case, Miki Ann Dimarco has died. The state of Wyoming will be seizing and seeing damages from her estate.

You see, my problem is that LGBTI people are part of the chunks of the people who ARE being excluded from basic rights or the ability to be seen or giving a voice. So when a report comes out saying that LGBT teens are 42% of homeless teens in the US and that many as young as 11 are turning to prostitution or drugs to survive then I have a question. When Robert Pickton can abduct and murder between 23 and 60 women from one area of one town (Vancouver) for YEARS before the public is notified and intensive efforts and made simply because he is targeting aboriginal women and prostitutes, I have a question? My question is, if THESE people are not included, if THESE homeless girls and women and transgender women are not included, if aboriginal and women in the sex trade and if intersex female prisoners are not included and if vulnerable women are not embraced and spoken up for then WHAT THE FUCK GOOD IS FEMINISM?

It's a question.


Well of course one could argue that never mind these exotic fringe issues when we ("what do you mean 'we', ___"?) have a(nother) crisis on our hands. Via I'm Not a Feminist, But..., this Guardian story:


Why is rape so easy to get away with?


Despite all the reforms to the police and courts, rape victims have only a tiny chance of seeing their attacker convicted. Julie Bindel investigates

Thursday February 1, 2007
The Guardian

'I coped with being raped," says Jane Lewis, who was attacked by a man two years ago at the party where they met, "but I went mad when he was acquitted. That is when I started fantasising about killing him." She later discovered that he had been accused of rape four times previously: twice not charged, and twice acquitted by a jury.

Today, rape might as well be legal. With women frequently accused of making false allegations, and victims who had consumed alcohol blamed for "getting themselves raped", it is a wonder that the conviction rate for reported rapes is as high as the current figure of 5%.

Article continues
Rape is an everyday occurrence. Research published yesterday by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Home Office Inspectorates estimates that of the 50,000 rapes thought to occur each year, between 75% and 95% are never reported. And almost a third of reported cases recorded by police as "no crime" should have been properly investigated as rape.

If a man commits a rape, then he has, on average, a less than 1% chance of being convicted. Those most likely to result in a conviction are classic stranger rapes, involving a man with a knife who breaks into the victim's home or drags her into the bushes.

...The CPS will only take a case to court if it has a "reasonable chance of conviction". This means that those cases that fit the stereotype - such as stranger rapes - take precedence over the more commonplace ones. Yet often women say that being raped by a man they love and trust hurts more than being attacked by a man they will never see again.

"If cases that appear difficult to win do not get to court," says Hamish Brown, a retired senior police officer and expert on sexual violence, "then jurors will never get the chance to become educated about those more complicated cases that rarely go forward." Despite this, Brown admits that in cases where it is simply "her word against his", he would usually decide not to charge. "If there is too much in the defence's favour, such as she was carrying condoms, it is unlikely to result in a conviction."

What is going wrong? Police deal with rape within a culture of suspicion. Despite feminists heaping praise on the police since they improved their approach to victims from the bad old days of the 70s and 80s, response to rape is still patchy and, at times, unacceptable. A Channel 4 documentary, screened last year, portrayed some officers as lazy and sexist and an allegation of rape by a prostitute as being treated lightly.



Ah. You mean, it might have something to do with really thoroughly ingrained shit dying hard; and, maybe just maybe problems with the way the State deals with such things.

But, no, we learn; actually, it's all the fault of:

The people we are fighting? Some of them are people whose pinheaded, self-serving, academented “analysis” it is that women “choose” to participate in beauty contests to get an education, or they “choose” to be prostituted to get an education, or they “choose” to participate in relationships which celebrate submission and dominance, and many of them are the same people who say our commitment to end sexism is “transphobic,” many of these people are the same people whose ideas are responsible for the fact that *things aren’t as different now for women as they were 20 years ago*. And *that* is the reasons for these discussions.

In point of fact, right now, to be dedicated to an end to sexism and to gender, full stop, is to be relentlessly excoriated by people who call that “transphobic” and a whole lot of other nasty things and a lot of those people are MEN who do not care one whit if anything ever changes for women, they want the clock turned back hundreds of years to the time when they owned us outright.

Really, I won’t have that kind of thing on this blog, the way when it begins to become evident that radical feminism has been lied about, maligned, misunderstood, when the lights go on and people start to bail because they realize they don’t have any good response to what has been offered, others come in wanting to talk about radical feminism being all about “theory” and no action, when *in fact* radical feminists are responsible for *revolution for women in our time* and if misogynists of all and every stripe would get the fuck out of the way with their misogynist ideas and behaviors and projects which they think are oh-so-”progressive,” and “transgressive,” even though they take us back to pre-feminism days, we might be able to actually *finish* the revolution we fucking began.

Sorry for my intensity but not really. This is TRUE.

Heart


***********


Get it? If it weren't for those pesky transgendered people making trouble, and the other people who support them for some inexplicable, probably sinister or at best trying-to-be-trendy reason, along with other "misogynist ideas and behaviors and projects," we wouldn't be having situations like this:

Rape victim is jailed on old warrant

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- A college student who told police she had been raped was jailed for two days after officers found an old warrant accusing her of failing to pay restitution for a 2003 theft arrest.

While she was behind bars, a jail worker refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after contraceptive pill because of the worker's religious convictions, the college student's attorney said.

The 21-year-old woman was released Monday only after attorney Vic Moore reported her plight to the local media. (Watch the mother describe how her daughter was twice vicitimized Video)

"Shocked. Stunned. Outraged. I don't have words to describe it," Moore said. "She is not a victim of any one person. She is a victim of the system. There's just got to be some humanity involved when it's a victim of rape."

Moore said the young woman was not allowed to take the second emergency contraceptive pill until Monday afternoon, a day late, after reporters called police and jail officials.

Tampa Police Chief Steve Hogue said the arrest led to a new policy Tuesday that tells officers not to arrest a crime victim who has suffered injury or mental trauma whenever "reasonably possible." The agency also apologized to the student.

"Obviously, any policy that allows a sexual battery victim to spend a night in jail is a flawed policy," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

The woman is not being identified by The Associated Press because she reported being the victim of a sex crime.

Tampa attorney Jennifer D'Angelo, who represents the jail worker, said Tuesday that her client is prohibited from giving inmates any medication without specific orders. The worker insists she never discussed religion with the woman who reported being raped...



Because clearly what happened to that student and what happened to Miki Ann DeMarco have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER.

Clearly, "they" need their own movement. Preferably far, far away. Or, better yet,

get the fuck out of the way

Now. Who's next?

56 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

Who should a feminist have more in common with: Condi or her maid.

The answer is more likely Condi.

Donna said...

Jeez I love it when you get wound up Belle! Excellent writing!

belledame222 said...

Thanks.

REye: i'm not following you, there, i'm afraid.

IrrationalPoint said...

Great post. Blaming other oppressed social groups for misogyny is hardly going to help women.

--IP.

ArrogantWorm said...

Ugh. Every time I experience, read or hear about discrimination and abuse like that, it makes me lose another little grain of my faith in humanity. As for the phrase "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other" may I get a cookie if I point out which one is the blatantly twisted social and political belief regarding human interaction and oppression so that the commenter in question, should she deign to visit your humble corner of the blogshpere, might recognize it? Normally I wouldn't bother as explaining the obvious similarities doesn't work with her, but I really, really want food and the pantry I go to is being a bit of an ass.

belledame222 said...

Surely. Chocolate chip or gingersnap?

wv: ayeck

Anonymous said...

"Some of them are people whose pinheaded, self-serving, academented “analysis” it is that women “choose” to participate in beauty contests to get an education, or they “choose” to be prostituted to get an education, or they “choose” to participate in relationships which celebrate submission and dominance" - Heart

In other words: choices made by women of which Heart disapproves are thereby null and void. Freedom = behaving in a way that Heart deems appropriate.

"others come in wanting to talk about radical feminism being all about “theory” and no action, when *in fact* radical feminists are responsible for *revolution for women in our time* and if misogynists of all and every stripe would get the fuck out of the way with their misogynist ideas and behaviors and projects which they think are oh-so-”progressive,” and “transgressive,” " - Heart

I cannot believe that Heart reads this blog, otherwise I would be tempted to think that this was written in response to something I wrote here. But that cannot be, since I was careful to make clear that internicine ferocity combined wiht the complete lack of anything in the way of a plan were hallmarks of Heart personally and not of radical feminism in general. So somebody else must have made observations of the same kind. That person it is who must bear the burden of knowing that they provoked our heroine to the most astonishing carpet-chewing, floorboard-perforating, furniture-hurling, window-smashing TANTRUM we have yet witnessed from her. To whoever you are: I hope you're proud of yourself!

belledame222 said...

I think QD/BL might take the bow for that one, although it might also be a construct of various Enemies clashing together in Heart's feverish little brain.

It is always nice to see when the sweetie-sweet veneer starts curdling, though.

And set off by such -odd- things, at that.

but yeah okay. all theory no action.

well i for one would certainly never have said that wrt radical feminists as a group, especially y'know the ones who were actually active as such back in the day. still not totally sure where that leaves Heart, tho'.

remind me: what is it that she actually does, again? MichFest, and the boards she runs. and?

belledame222 said...

as i noted elsewhere, just thinking out loud:

you know, i understand why people get caught up in it; reading Heart, i often get the impression of this sort of epic drama, something not entirely unlike "Gone With The Wind," perhaps, in which there is a cast of thousands and an historical, sweeping backdrop, but she is unquestionably the star of the show.

and, like, whenever she doesn't respond to something, or responds to it in a way that makes you go, "say wha?" it's because, it'd be like y'know, if you were Scarlett in the eternal movie of your life , somewhere between the actor and the character (think "Purple Rose of Cairo," just to mix analogies even more and make it totally confusing), playing on endless loop, and someone from like a Coen Brothers film, or a documentary, or a Warner Brothers cartoon, or just one of the film crew, tidying up the set, had wandered through. that wasn't the line, see; that's not part of the script. what happened to the lights? that's not the music! this is not how it's supposed to go. (stamp)

of course if that keeps happening often enough, then that would probably drive our heroine to do some rather startling things herself. nasty things, but mostly things that just -don't make sense.-

but i mean: wouldn't you, if your whole hermetically sealed world was crumbling about your ears?


(similar for Stormcloud and maybe a couple others, i think, except that's a much more low-budget film, and it's like this cheesy spy thriller or something.

TF would be something like a cross between a Beckett play and "The Weakest Link," with maybe some Food Channel thrown in)

Anonymous said...

It is always nice to see when the sweetie-sweet veneer starts curdling, though. - BD

Yes, the Glenn Close face showing through the Jessica Tandy mask.

belledame222 said...

"Driving Miss Crazy"

Anonymous said...

Well, I must admit that *I* find Heart's little passion play utterly engrossing. "The Margins" was my first experience of internet feminism and I've never managed to stay away for long. It's so very *Gothic*, if you see what I mean. Heart reminds me of no-one in literature so much as Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. Think of what they have in common: the obsessive role-playing (which you noted, BD) and the need to make everyone else adhere to the script; and the determination that her own resentment be the measure of all things. I think I'm going to give myself a new internet handle: Pip!

belledame222 said...

hey, here's a question:

how'd she hook up with most of the rest of that bunch? the old Ms. boards?

at some point, as i understand it, she "converted" from radical right wing Christianity to radical feminism; and that was (as i understand it) because during her Troubles, some wonderful women stuck by her, feminists, like.

how'd they know who she was in the first place? is my question.

i mean, somewhere in there there must've been an overlap between the two...communities? where is that territory, and--what i really want to know--how many of the seriously fucked-up folks hail from there also? because, i am thinking that it -can't- be a coincidence that so many of 'em--lucky, Mary Sunshine, etc.--sound so very much like radical rightwingers in so many ways.

soopermouse said...

so that is why I always felt Heart= Serena Joy?

Anonymous said...

at some point, as i understand it, she "converted" from radical right wing Christianity to radical feminism; and that was (as i understand it) because during her Troubles, some wonderful women stuck by her, feminists, like. - BD

Well, it had something to do with what old feminist hands refer to as "the Ms boards" which were a bit before my time, I'm afraid, but which loads of prominent internet feminists cut their teeth on, apparently. Anyway, Heart said somewhere at the Margins that she began her feminist life as pro-pornography but that the reasons urged by Bean and other anti-porners convinced her that it was a pollutant to pure feminism - good for men, bad for women. I really did read that, I'm not imagining it, though I don't think that I could track it down for you anymore: the Margins is a nightmare to search, with more threads than Ariadne. What may have happened is that she left a repressive church, tried out, at least in her imagination, some of the wicked things it had prohibited, and then got kicked in the guts by an overwhelming sense of guilt. The puritanism of a certain strain of radfeminism would then have presented itself to her as a kind of alternative salvation. I *think* that that's what happened, but I can't be sure, evidently.

soopermouse said...

so that is why I always felt Heart= Serena Joy?

belledame222 said...

Hm. and the others?

I'm totally serious: who the -hell- is this Rich character, and what is his (?) -trauma- already? ye gods.

Veronica said...

i mean, somewhere in there there must've been an overlap between the two...communities? where is that territory, and--what i really want to know--how many of the seriously fucked-up folks hail from there also

The homeschooling movement. I'd be willing to put money on it. It's about the only place, aside from the anti-porn places, where you find that same overlap of extreme left and extreme right.

ArrogantWorm said...

"It is always nice to see when the sweetie-sweet veneer starts curdling, though."

I see her veneer as yellowed, cracked, chipped and held together tenuously with super-glue, myself. I think it's pretty much always curdled, some of it just slips through the cracks and bubbles up occasionally. It also occurs to me that she might hate aspects of herself and have self guilt in abundance due to being raised in a fundamentalist religion, which, hypothetically, could be why she and others consistently demand that they are always right, forever and ever, amen. If a belief is so fragile that the person holding it spews nonsensical babble at the mere questioning of that belief, it's more like a cover to keep hold of the turmoil inside than anything. It might also explain why she brings up trans people in almost every discussion as a way of grounding her identity, because if all ills can be blamed on one specific problem, that is, misogyny, and there's also no such thing as transgendered behavior just people going against standard gendered practices (which of course can in no way be described as transgender, she can blame them freely for misogyny (which in her view includes someone acting like or believing themselves to be a woman who doesn't meet her specifications of a woman) which seems to be her new devil, then she's blameless on persecuting them because in her reality, the persecution is the other way around. Although I am curious if she holds to the same standards of femininity that the VRR Shelter ascribes to.
I'd also like to know where she gets her 'everyone is persecuting radical feminists! belief, especially if she isn't an activist in 'real life.' It isn't the concept of all radical feminists that's being disparaged, it's her and others with her beliefs regarding certain subjects, and she doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference.


As for Rich, can't stand him. Nope nope nope. You know those Disney cartoons, with the evil, dimwitted henchmen who grovel at the feet of their masters/mistresses in return for a type of 'acceptance'? Reminds me of Rich. There has got to be a lot of self-loathing going on there, and I'd be interested in finding out where it all stems from.

ArrogantWorm said...

Oh! And chocolate, please. Knew I forgot something.

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering if "Rich" isn't the male radfem "Angry Scientist" who showed up briefly at "Women's Space" a while back, was sort of encouraged by Mistress, tried to impress her by breaking a lance for antipornography at "Alas", came back expecting a gracious smile and more encouragement, was shocked at the frostiness of the reception and disappeared. He was strongly anti-trans, I seem to recall.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad someone came right out and said it. What the fuck good IS feminism when people do these things in its name?

I still believe in the things I believed in when I first discovered feminism. Strongly.

But somehow I have no rancor whatever toward the "backlash-deluded" "ignorant young women" who won't claim the term.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I GET TO BE PINHEAD!

That's just fucking cool.

belledame222 said...


The homeschooling movement. I'd be willing to put money on it. It's about the only place, aside from the anti-porn places, where you find that same overlap of extreme left and extreme right.


Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but didn't quite say because i realized i don't know all that much about the homeschooling movement. but sure, i guess it follows--i knew there are/were leftie homseschoolers, i certainly knew there were extreme right-wing homeschoolers.



Oh, and I GET TO BE PINHEAD!



HA!

i can totally see Heart as the "don't go in there!! (or "don't open the box!!" i suppose) woman, piercing screams and all.

TN: ooohhhh, THAT's right, i KNEW he sounded familiar. you're probably right. i mean, i hope so; it's just too horrifying to imagine that there's more than one.

I gotta say, she's assembled quite the collection of regulars there.

"by their regulars ye shall know them"?

all's i know is, i come out of reading a long thread in there and inevitably i have the urge to


1) go b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b a la Warner Brothers

2)1) take a loooooong hot shower

3) have a stiff drink

yeh i dunno. at one point Heart said something along the lines of, "My experience is that of most women on this planet," and immediately i thought, "oh, which one is that?"

i still don't know, mind. possibly Uranus.

belledame222 said...

so, but, wait, you're saying AS got frosty reception last time? at Heart's? or at Alas? if the former, how come he gets a pass this time?

actually it -seems- like you can do pretty much anything in there except go up against Heart herself. then forget it.

(Marvin Martian voice)

"You have made me VERY ANGRY," (pant, pant) "VERY ANGRY INDEED!"

belledame222 said...

I'd also like to know where she gets her 'everyone is persecuting radical feminists! belief, especially if she isn't an activist in 'real life.

see above re: home planet.

well, and, it theoretically would make her sound more reasonable than if she went straight for "everyone is out to get MEMEMEMEMEEEEEEEEEE," right?

oh. hm. well.

wv: outkozao

Anonymous said...

Nice. What strikes me about that "feminist" battle cry is that it starts out as though it's a call to the feminist anti-academic resistance of decades ago. As though all the people to fight ARE academics, out to get her relatively powerless group, when it's far more probable that one of her groupies would be well-educated. Because all transpeople and imprisoned people and etc sit around reading up on their critical theory before deciding to flaunt themselves in feminist spaces, of course!

(Does she think that stuff like queer theory started out as an easy academic exercise? seriously.)

J. Goff said...

all's i know is, i come out of reading a long thread in there and inevitably i have the urge to


1) go b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b a la Warner Brothers

2)1) take a loooooong hot shower

3) have a stiff drink


And fucking how. As to Rich, hopefully he gets what he deserves, as do all the lackwit toadies. Though, I'm betting that, in a world where his tripe is considered reasonable discourse, this won't happen.=, and more God-fearing Hearts and transgender-bashing jackasses like Rich and lucky will be given a pat on the back and a welcome smile. Same as it ever was.

belledame222 said...

well, i'm spelunking in some archives now. i think actually "Rich" goes back a ways.

reading some old rehashed dwamas from a few years back, which is mildly entertaining.

but, this is more interesting:

Such a large family must really keep you busy! Tell us a little about how your days go. Do the children help produce Gentle Spirit magazine?
Busy barely begins to cover it! I once had the idea that it would all get easier when some of the kids were grown, and in some ways, I suppose it is, but I failed to take into consideration grandchildren and the comings and goings of grown children and especially, getting older and tireder! But I love having a big family.
Seven of my children, 1 through 16, are still at home all of the time, and all are unschooled. My 23-year-old daughter, Jenni, lives with John and Ami during the week and comes home on the weekends. Roland and John and their families live about 40 miles away, and they visit frequently, or the younger children go to their houses to stay with them for a few days. Claude, 21, lives about 10 minutes away, attends Pierce College in Tacoma, and works nearby.
Everybody works on the magazine in some capacity. The circulation office is at John and Ami's house, and Ami answers the telephone during our phone-answering hours. Jennifer and Ami take turns watching Meadow and Judah and answering phones, entering subscription and order information, and filling orders for back issues...


that's...nice. i guess.

continuing:

have always loved to write, since I was a little girl. I think I put together my first newsletter when I was 8 or 9 years old! But until I started writing about homeschooling, I had not had formal publishing experience of any kind.
I left a full-time career in 1983 to start homeschooling my older children. At the time, homeschooling was illegal in Washington, and homeschooling families were few and far between. There weren't many books or resources for homeschoolers, so I essentially had to make my own way. As time passed I realized many people were interested in what I had learned as a homeschooling mom of a large family. People would ask my advice, ask how I coped with various kinds of things, how we were able to make it on one income after having two incomes for so long. Around 1986 I wrote and self-published a huge book called Homeschooling: A Mother's Guide and Resource Book, and I advertised it in a small homeschooling trade magazine and began to develop a mailing list. In 1989, I was invited to submit proposals for workshops at the Washington Homeschool Organization's annual state convention. I presented two workshops that first year, one on Living Simply, another on Homeschooling Teenagers. In conjunction with the workshops, I typed up a few relevant chapters of my book in newsletter format and called this newsletter "Gentle Spirit." I made 30 or so copies available at the workshops, and they were all gone in an instant, so I knew the information I had to share was valuable to other homeschooling families.
I sent a copy of the tape of my "Living Simply" workshop to Focus on the Family, James Dobson's organization, and as a result, I was invited to participate as part of a panel of four stay-at-home moms in a Focus program titled "Career Homemaking." Dr. Dobson advertised my very humble, stapled-together newsletter on this national broadcast, and that is how I gained national exposure. I started with 23 subscribers in 1989 and by spring of 1994, I had 17,000 or so subscribers internationally. I never advertised the magazine, and it was never on the newsstands. Our circulation grew by word-of-mouth references and by making the magazine available at workshops and seminars.


...There has been a lot of talk recently about a lawsuit you were involved with. Can you explain what happened?
I filed suit in Federal Court for the Western District of Washington against several defendants: Calvary Chapel of Tacoma (Washington), Joe and Irene Williams, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (California), The Teaching Home magazine and Sue Welch, Gregg Harris of Christian Life Workshops, Christian Home Educators of Ohio (CHEO) and its then-chairperson Michael Boutot, and Bill and Mary Pride, publishers of Practical Homeschooling magazine, alleging a number of causes of action, among them defamation, outrage, interference with commerce, and violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of the United States.
We settled our claims with Gregg Harris, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, CHEO, and the Prides before trial for amounts which we agreed to keep confidential. We did go to trial with Sue Welch, and after eight days of trial, a unanimous jury found that Sue Welch and the Williams had entered into an illegal conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The jury found that I had been damaged in the amount of $435,000. Because damages awards in antitrust actions are automatically trebled, I was entitled to receive in excess of 1.3 million dollars from Sue Welch, and I was entitled to recover my attorneys' fees and costs.




...oh, and, the punchline:

Sometimes, too, when there is tension and conflict within a movement, as there was with Christian homeschooling at the time, people and groups are scapegoated. One ancient way to achieve unity in a group is to organize or mobilize group members around a common enemy. It deflects the attentions of members of the group away from ongoing conflicts and allows them to concentrate on some person or group that is perceived to be a real threat or a problem. I believe in this instance I was scapegoated, and I also believe there have been other scapegoats.

Um. Yeah.

belledame222 said...

i'll say this for her: she's a mover and shaker where'er she goes, isn't she.

now morbidly curious about the -really- early years.

"tell us about your childhood."

hey, she ought to like this; i mean, she digs it when people are interested in her history, i take it.

belledame222 said...

oh, and here

As you will learn as you read my story, which follows, I am no stranger to pain. I have survived severe batterings in my earthly pilgrimage � physical batterings with fists and objects, cascading violence which nearly took my life. I know what it is to be beaten, again and again, to a bloody, senseless pulp � the wild terror, the degradation and despair. I have also survived other kinds of beatings over many years' time � verbal, emotional and spiritual batterings which wound the spirit and numb the senses, which rob persons made in the image of God of their will to go on living, which cheat them of the God-given birthright of human dignity.

The worst part of each and every episode � the beatings, physical and otherwise, and the "church discipline," as well � was never the physical or even the emotional or spiritual pain inflicted, hard as those things may have been to endure. The real nightmare always was that the punishment came at the hands of those who said � and, I think, honestly believed � they loved and cared for me, or sometimes, those who believed they were acting for God. The real horror lie less in the actual pain inflicted than in the abuse of power or authority, that those who were stronger or bigger or who in other ways had the power to destroy reserved to themselves the right to decide if destruction was just and deserved.

A significant number of you, Dear Readers, do not consider yourselves to be fundamentalist or conservative Christians, and for your sakes I have offered here a brief explanation of the process of church discipline, along with a brief description of what and who constitutes the " Christian home schooling movement", in hopes the following portion of This Month at Home will make sense to you. One extraordinarily blessed thing about Gentle Spirit has been the sweet fellowship we have shared here together as women, although you, my readers, are out of every conceivable faith background, or, for that matter, no faith background. A number of you would not consider yourself to be Christians at all. You are and have always been most welcome here. Have you felt that? Do you know it? I hope so. I would like to do what I can to help you understand what has happened over the last few months so that you can make sense of some of the things you may have heard and of the long interruption of your subscription.

Someone to whom I am very close has often expressed appreciation for the fact that I "draw big circles." What is meant by that is that I want far more to include than to exclude, to draw in than to shut out. I have longed to open my heart and my life to all who are drawn to simplicity of lifestyle, to all who cherish their roles as keepers at home. That is and has always been the purpose of Gentle Spirit. Somehow over the last couple of years, the vision dimmed. Other voices drowned out the still small voice; other priorities replaced the ones God gave me long ago. I lost touch with some of you, adrift, as I was, in waves of controversies, disputes, strifes of words, personal struggles and hardship, even the temptation to grab the glory ring and run with it to the top. The top of what, you might be asking? That's the trouble. Neither do I have a clue. So I'm back where I was five years ago, an ordinary woman at home living an ordinary woman's life, with precious, beautiful, ordinary children who are everything to me. I'm home again in all the ways that matter.

It's okay, Dear Ones. God has been faithful. Over the past harrowing months, He did not leave me without comfort. He gave me one person who stood with me, one who carried me, one who would not let me go. This one reminded me, over and over again, when in an anguish of soul and spirit I felt I could not go on, just what I was called to do. And I remember now. I remember...


it goes on. oh, it -does- go on.

ArrogantWorm said...

It's like a train wreck; I want to look away, and staring at the flow of words may indeed make me physically ill, but I just can't. I'm not sure there can be more than one allowance of a guy with Rich's veiws if the group cohesion is expected to stay, though. I think if there were two, they'd be sniping at each other over who was more privileged and who tries harder to negate said privilege. They'd probably get egged on as well. I think the hating on trans specifically is considered more of a bonus thing, as he uses abusive language to disparage everyone who disagrees that a woman at any place at any time may have power. It seems to me the need for an absolute lack of power comes just a smidge before the trans hatred, although I might just be over tired.

Anonymous said...

so, but, wait, you're saying AS got frosty reception last time? at Heart's? or at Alas? if the former, how come he gets a pass this time?
- BD

As to the frosty reception: Heart told him that she wished there were more guys like him around ("may your tribe increase" etc.) but not around *her*. In fact she said that he was coming on all chivalrous and she was beginning to find it uncomfortable.

The difference between her attitude towards Angry ("I am so too a") Scientist and her attitude towards Rich lies in the fact that Rich is helping her fight a very specific campaign in which allies might be harder to find. Men who feel guilty about men's inhumanity to women aren't that hard to find, and if she welcomed them to her blog they might soon have the run of the place; men and who are prepared to attack a suffering minority while at the same time claiming to be feminists are a more valuable asset. And Rich doesn't cosy up to Heart in the same offensive way.

AS and Rich might be same person or they might not be, but the two electronic identities perform different roles and receive a different reception in consequence.

By the way, Heart's sons comment at Women's Space. Rich might even be one of those.

belledame222 said...

get. OUT.

zomg. -really???-

that, that, that would be, i, i, i,

(trails off into boggled silence).

no, can't be. because surely he would've mentioned it, i can't imagine not. besides, would she want to claim credit for raising -that-? don't answer that.

mind you there does seem to be a rather disturbing dynamic between this ilk of fuck-you-menz-feminist and their sons, i have been noticing in several instances.

like, o, luckynkl apparently cannot give birth to sons, she had four daughters and apparently it was because she was so very feminist that she simply -willed- XY genes out'n her womb (i am hearing this secondhand from an old thread, mind you, but it sounds like her)

or another rf saying that if necessary, she'd see her own son dead (who is also online p.s. and they -seem- to have an okay relationship) if it meant keeping women, including his niece/her granddaughter, safe from rape.

the implications of that were and are more than a bit oogy, i mean -besides- the really obvious one.

i was all, funky cold Meda! groovy! um, have you y'know discussed this with him?

and, yeah, i, i, i, i, i, got nothin', really.

(interestingly enough, she has, i believe, a male S.O., does this woman, and yet she didn't think to maybe put him on the pyre first, or at all, apparently. mebbe she just didn't want to mention the S.O. at all, given the surroundings at the time. shrug)

and someone else--was it cicely? plains feminist? who was telling a story about having lived in a wimminz' collective wherein one of the adult women was trying to complain that one of the other women's seven-year-old son had "threatened" her with his penis (i.e. she walked into the bathroom and he was standing there holding it, apparently).

and then there is or was BB, and her recounted methods of discipline for misbehaving boys. the S.O. included.

and of course, as noted above, Heart had that whole rather Phelpsian or at least Duggar-ian quasi- Swiss Family Robinson thing going on. publishing Mom's newletter: fun for the whole family!! (and perhaps part of the "unschooling" she speaks of).

yeah, it all sounds real healthy. i'm sure none of these lads grow up to be self-hating messes who take it out on either themselves or other women or both, upon reaching adulthood.

because, everyone knows that the whole, abuse begets abuse thing is a bunch of crap put forth by the self-help industry/psychotheRAPISTS, which is yet ANOTHER way THEY have co-opted the revolution the righteous ones had started it, bending it to their own sinister agenda. duh, PATRIARCHY begets abuse. which means (in Heartland at least) specifically that MEN beget abuse. women do not. therefore, there is no such thing as a woman who could ever possibly abuse her son. QED.

i love her so much

belledame222 said...

"funky cold Medea," dammit

belledame222 said...

..or, if she did, it'd be the male parent figure's fault, i guess.

if there IS no male parent figure, well then.

oh hell i don't know.

also, women never abuse other women. nope nope nope. they may -sell them out- to the -patriarchy- and as such need to be roundly scolded and, if necessary, made to "get the fuck out of the way," and they may "attack" innocent victims like Heart...but, that's not an abuse of power, see, 'cuz we like don't HAVE any.

all 3.5 billion of us, especially the one with the broken hip. or the governorship.

women have no power.

VIVA the Revolution!!

i'm getting a headache.

i'm sure it's just because i you know -didn't read her carefully enough,- Heart that is.

anyone know anything about Scientology, p.s.? they apparently have that whole thing, "read the tech," if you haven't understood something properly. because, it can ONLY be that you haven't understood something properly. so, go back and read it AGAIN, until you do.

also they like to affectionately refer to non-Scientologists as "raw meat," which is nothing at all like calling women who aren't radical feminists "proto-bees" or "honeybees" or whatever the fuck it was.

(Stormcloud, who is sort of like Heart without the sweetie-sweetie, and after a blow to the head. with an anvil. from several stories. the sheer DWAMA is there though, as well as the rather um -interesting- worldview, altho' Heart's appears to be more nuanced if you aren't looking very carefully. or don't catch her in a meltdown).

Veronica said...

and of course, as noted above, Heart had that whole rather Phelpsian or at least Duggar-ian quasi- Swiss Family Robinson thing going on. publishing Mom's newletter: fun for the whole family!! (and perhaps part of the "unschooling" she speaks of).

The unschooling had to have come later. The first wave of kids from the pre-law suit era would have been Biblically homeschooled, or "classically" homeschooled with a big does of Bible tossed in, or Dobson wouldn't have advertised it to begin with.

the sheer DWAMA is there though, as well as the rather um -interesting- worldview, altho' Heart's appears to be more nuanced if you aren't looking very carefully. or don't catch her in a meltdown

It's not especially nuanced--she's got the theory and the theory is correct--that's where all this crap about transsexuals is coming from. The theory says, "Anyone that is a man has power over anyone that is a woman."

The theory also says "Anything that is 'feminine' is infantilizing and designed to oppress."

So, added up: Strike One: MTF's are Men because they were socialized as men, and they have power over women. And, Strike Two: MTF's, in embracing that which is "feminine," are literally wolf in sheeps clothing--they're actively mocking women's lack of power, while grinning out from Male socialized positions of Power. "Hee!" Says the creeping transsexual. "We get to wear the dress and have the power! Booga! Booga!" And, because the theory is Correct in Totality, and Unquestioned by the Initiated Who Truly Believe, any evidence to the contrary (rape/violence statistics proving how dangerous it is to be a "powerful" transsexual) is either made-up, overstated, or just another way for the Devil, er, Men, to attack believers of the One True Faith.

That's not nuance.

That's Biblical literalism.

belledame222 said...

It's not especially nuanced--she's got the theory and the theory is correct--that's where all this crap about transsexuals is coming from. The theory says, "Anyone that is a man has power over anyone that is a woman."

O of course. but because she takes this come-let-us-reason-together tone a lot of the time, not to mention a fair amount of doublespeak (sometimes; she's been rather refreshingly blunt here) well, she sounds -reasonable,- if you're not really paying attention and/or don't want to believe that -that's- what she really means, 'cuz shit, that's -awful.-

Veronica said...

Yeah, well, Dobson sounds "reasonable" to a big chunk of the country, too.

Anonymous said...

get. OUT.

zomg. -really???-

that, that, that would be, i, i, i,

(trails off into boggled silence).

- BD

Yes, you can't make a visit to Women's Space or the Margins without having something astonishing to get over. I remember coming across a thread at the Margins, oh years ago now, in which some troll - almost certainly a man - was claiming to be an ex-satanist woman who had left the movement because it was so male-dominated. He went on like this, with Heart interpolating her own words of encouragement and compassion, for post after post. And she never twigged, never.

When she tried to bust into Alas with her proposal that she run her own female/feminist only threads there, there were questions as to how she could tell the sex of a commenter who wanted to keep it secret. And she said, effecively, that her femmiradar was infallible, and that none of those beastly boys would stand a chance against it.

Sweet Heart. She'd be so much less amusing if you had a sense of humour.

Anonymous said...

er...if she had a sense of humour.

Geez, my editing skills.

belledame222 said...

:eyes sliding back into skull: i remember the "radical feminists only" proposal, altho' not that particular detail.


"Ahem. Now that I have finally, with great trepidation and disdain, accepted the invitation to your party, i propose that i and my guests be given a particular room to ourselves, in which to sequester ourselves and entertain to our liking. This would, I believe, be beneficial to everyone here; frankly, this is what your party has been missing. Besides, we need a Room Of Our Own. We are so shut out, so silenced--

-bridling- of COURSE there are other Rooms Of Our Own! Salons! Parties! I host one myself! A damn good one, too!

What was I saying? Oh, right. We need, I mean, you need us. and, it is simply The Right Thing To Do. LEBENSRAUM!!! oh, haha, -living room.- Yes. I think the living room will do nicely for our purposes. (frowns) I do hope, however, that you are not intending to leave that piano uncovered. And the sofa, you know, needs to be over -there- --that's better. Also, I notice that some of your guests would appear to be indulging in the deplorable habit of smoking. I must insist that -at minimum-, they be kept far away from our room. a good airing would do the whole place some good, if you ask me. And MAY I remind you that I am a strict teetotaller; any sign that this is -not- a strictly dry party in -any- way and i am afraid I shall not be able to grace you with my presence at all.

-bright smile- Yes? You're quite welcome..."

belledame222 said...

and yes, i don't think i've encountered anyone quite that thoroughly devoid of -any- sense of even rudimentary humor in recent memory, let alone y'know irony or the absurd (well of course then she simply would cease to exist, but still).

wv: vooeph

i think that must've been the noise of her inhalation when she heard that Amp had Gone Over to the Dark Side.

belledame222 said...

o good grief. it must be this guy/site. humble little soul that he/they sound(s):

http://www.adonismirror.com/about.htm



It’s not hard to publish material on gender these days. The subject is undoubtedly trendy. Mainstream audiences enjoy a steady diet of pseudo-science designed to justify what everyone already knows about the subject, a constant refrain of Mars and Venus mythologies. The allegedly more radical front also depends on puff-pieces for its own sense of identity. Nothing is more exciting than the written-embodiment of a drag show, exhuming supposed curiosities like a Leftist equivalent of a PT Barnum. These sob stories trafficked by pimps of pain are less about transforming sexual politics and more about imagining oneself outside the realm of bourgeois sensibility; or more importantly, responsibility.

So long as one sticks to obvious critiques of obvious targets (Republicans, religious fundamentalists, et al.) on the political level, and remains cute and coy about it on the personal, gender certainly is a popular subject in progressive circles, provided certain loyalties are paid to it. Gender as a concept begins to matter for its own sake, as if it has some sort of intrinsic value in and of itself that is worthy of interest—not because of what is done to people on a pandemic level because of its continued construction by patriarchy. “Gender Oppression” has thus become subordinate in importance to “Gender Expression,” shifting political focus from the voiceless to media exhibitionists.

Focus on that dynamic and things change. Literally. But because too much change is a bad thing, publishing opportunities quickly begin to dry up. The truth doesn’t please advertisers trying to sell everything from gun-shaped vibrators in feminist magazines to the permanent enslavement of girls and women; sex tourism commercials that are still allowed or even encouraged by some of the most powerful and influential of liberal-male publications, all under the aegis of “free speech.” The truth doesn’t please editors who often feel that they’ve outgrown their own progressive-minded journals, which they begin to see as merely a stepping stone to lucrative mainstream markets, and being able to annually resell the same article on pornography, the wage-gap, or whatever issue is made momentarily relevant by some bigger-league pundit isn’t conducive to moving the debate forward. And the truth certainly doesn’t please readers who are desperate to believe that their own lives, thoughts, and actions are generally on the level: from us males (whether we personally believe ourselves to be men or women) who are given every entitlement to focus on our own pain, to females whose mental and physical survival often requires them to put others first, necessitating the imagining of some other body being more marginal or peripheral than their own.

Adonis Mirror is envisioned as an antidote to liberal vanity, a journal devoted to pro-feminist activism, that endeavors to talk about the hard truths and above all, to name names—especially when doing otherwise would be easier.



Oh, that sounds totally supportive of little ol' girlie me. Not at all sneering or McCarthyesque. No.

fuckhead(s)

belledame222 said...

and, he ALSO doesn't sound at all like someone who maaaayyyyybe at one point had something resembling a burgeoning journalism/academic/something of that sort career, (or at least was giving it the ol' college try) till he burned all his bridges by being an insufferable asshole and/or writing really crazy hateful spew, not that any of it is -his- problem, no, it's that THEY CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!11!!!1!

belledame222 said...

...golly.

o.k. i think i'm beginning to get an inkling here:



Beyond Fathers as Gods

By Richard Leader

Printable Version PDF

Millions tuned in to the second season-finale of ABC’s Lost, hoping to see Michael (Harold Perrineau Jr.) meet a horrific end. The African American character had betrayed the rest of his island-bound castaways, murdering two of them outright, all to rescue his biological son, Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), a boy he hardly knew before an airplane crash had stranded them together. Super-Dads, men who will go to any length to protect their children, are nothing new when it comes to society’s collective fantasies: saving a loved one, or, just as often, getting revenge on their behalf, entitles “good men” to act out in the most horrific ways—all for our entertainment. It is the perfect setup for a variety of violent actions, typically climaxing in an energetic fit of justifiable homicide. As a black man, Michael’s actions were seen as less justifiable than most. In fact, his character constitutes the marquee figure of a new genre: the father who goes too far in the name of fatherhood.

Such characters are not limited to television dramas, but so-called “reality” shows as well. The 12th season of Survivor, “Exile Island,” featured Shane, a manic marketing executive who not only had his son’s name, Boston, tattooed onto his chest, but urged his fellow teammates to swear fealty oaths on his son. Sylvester Stallone’s boxing saga, The Contender, saw its most controversial moment when one fighter, Anthony Bonsante, betrayed his team by surreptitiously picking a match-up that everyone viewed as unfair. He defended his choice of a weak opponent by positioning himself as a father protecting the interests of his children, the beneficiaries of his boxing career. Like Shane, Bonsante was hardly the only father on the show, and none found his arguments especially compelling. Indeed, Stallone’s mandate to NBC was to portray fighters as good family men, in the sport for the sake of others, with Ahmed Kaddour standing as the lone villain, boxing to support a Hollywood lifestyle.

These new images of fatherhood, art and life imitating each other in equal measure, have no monolithic meaning, save patriarchy. As much as they reflect general male anxiety about having to live up to a more taxing model of fatherhood, requiring both sensitivity and active involvement, these Super-Dads are remembered for their failures in another sphere: the competitive arena of masculine honor. Indeed, speaking ill of these men as fathers is verboten (any attempt to attack them on those grounds is itself a breach of the male honor-code), but they are to blame for the various infirmities that put them in the position of having to balance, and failing, their twin duties to both their offspring and the patriarchal cult of brotherhood. The emerging archetype of the failed Super-Dad serves both as a warning, urging the men that society deems undesirable to avoid the balancing act altogether, and to normalize the occasional failures of those men, especially white men, who can now further establish their places within the masculine sphere of honor by using their children as lavish props.

The ultimate irony of this development is that pro-feminism itself has become utterly obsessed with fatherhood: while it has long been agreed upon that the protection of paternity was the catalyst for the construction of a patriarchal world, it has now become the preferred site for pro-feminist resistance. The most popular and influential group today is not the stodgy (and often dodgy) National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS), but Dads and Daughters, a group so exciting and meteoric that even pro-feminist luminaries without children are glomming onto it as “advisors,” hoping to keep their own careers on parallel trajectories. With a slick website that seems primarily dedicated to promoting Joe Kelly’s book of the same name, not to mention cultivating $3,000 speaking engagements for him, Dads and Daughters has no plans to create local chapters for their ethereal non-profit organization. Nevertheless, they have become so enviable that even feminist women are conducting their own activism under their banner, with actor Geena Davis running her See Jane media-awareness campaign as part of the Dads and Daughters brand name. Conversely, these men freely take advantage of infrastructure built by feminists, like New Moon publishing, in order to sell back-issues of their newsletter: information on how to become a better father always comes with a price tag.

Dads and Daughters is not a pro-feminist group: it is a group for nice guys. Acknowledging that fact does not diminish the positive contributions they have made, yet it is a fact that fewer people than ever see as relevant, even feminist women, who have enabled Dads and Daughters to reach phenomenon status. While there is a category of feminist literature today devoted to lampooning so-called “nice guys,” rants that depict men who self identify as such as boors who feel entitled to sex, the ascension of fatherhood as the ultimate act of pro-feminism stems from the desire of many women to find the genuine article. After all, the cuddly image of an older gentleman who cares deeply for his offspring (and likely his spouse, the institution of marriage being equally idealized) runs counter to the image projected by other self avowed pro-feminists, young anarchists obsessed with pornography despite their claims supporting gender equality.

Ms. Musings, a blog once operated by Ms. Magazine, had a small section of links devoted to “men we love,” with two of the three links being to a “Rebel Dad” and a “Daddy Zine.” Similarly, the Beastie Boys were able to capitalize on feminist angst, women who have long enjoyed the music despite their objections to the group’s sexism and homophobia, as they reinvented themselves as family men: they made their millions off of oppression and now, after a simple apology, they have been given free license by feminists to invest those millions in protecting their own genetic legacy. While “fatherhood as pro-feminism” has many flaws, all obvious in nature, perhaps one of the most ironic ones is that it makes patriarchs, literally, the best pro-feminists. It is always the men with the largest amounts of male-privilege who are entrusted to tell other men not to be sexist. The professional pro-feminists, the ones who attain the lion’s share of both mainstream and feminist attention, as a demographic, are growing older with each passing year and actively discriminate against younger males participating as anything but star-struck pupils. Breeding has become the best way to circumvent that barrier.

Being a “good father” can itself be an antifeminist act...


this guy's about two hairs away from MRA territory, in that bends-around-and-meets 360 degree sort of way.


For all of the talk about new or alternative families entertained in progressive circles, all too often these efforts come out looking exactly like the families that Dr. James Dobson would like to legislate, only with different players cast for the parts.

All of this was supposed to be vaunted by feminists. Lesbian women might have an easier time becoming mothers, given the availability of sperm, but this does not entitle gay men—nor heterosexual ones for that matter—access to women’s bodies, especially as it is straight women, seen as the prototypical “bottom” in patriarchy’s sadomasochism game, who are typically recruited as broodmares for men of all sexualities. Though there is something to be said for women who choose to raise children outside of male influence, as much as such a thing is even possible, a good number of men are all too willing to let women take on that hefty responsibility, completely satisfied with their role of biological parenthood. While many sperm donors might talk of lofty and high minded reasons behind their decision, in reality, they are not much different from the cast of MTV’s Jackass who attended a fertility clinic in order to have their contributions rated against each other in some sort of contest...


elsewhere, i can't look away, it's like a traffic accident:

Radical feminists are dangerous creatures. They are at once an unseemly fringe element of society, something so outlandish that most people can scarcely even admit they still exist, and yet their stony eyes still bewitch the courts and media to do their bidding, damning the American public to their doleful Politically Correct agenda. Radical feminists are rather like Martians, only worse: Death Rays can only kill you; feminists can suck all the fun out of your life. For the crime of caring about sexual exploitation, prostitution in both its traditional and televised forms (the word pornography magically transforming an illegal act into protected “speech”), they are often accused of being “closet conservatives” who are more than willing to align themselves with religious fundamentalists.

Nothing could be further from the truth but the male Left requires such mythology: these allegations of collusion allow liberals to discount their own selfish attachment to sexism...

...Radical feminists are seen as uncompromising and dogmatic—and hence, less rational and soundly masculine.

...Yet the Ayn Rand set, privileged as they are, has been able to put aside the same differences that they encourage in other women—gleefully smashing their competing armies into oblivion as they themselves sup at the same table of free-speech feminism. They are given a strap-on to fuck other women on behalf of male power, a false phallus that can be taken away if they go astray and prove themselves threatening to the status quo.


:headdesk headdesk: why o why do i do this to myself...

there have been other groups of women who have also been overrepresented in such matters: women born with penises. Even as Take Back the Night rallies have become passé, endlessly occupied by males seeking to invisible their sex’s perpetration of violence with the rhetoric of equality in victim hood (or survivorship for that matter) through the same campaigns of slander that forced even the Ms. Foundation to change “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” into a blasé gender-neutral event, Leftists in college campuses have readily taken to the “Transgender Day of Remembrance.”


omfg shut up shut up shut UP you hateful fucking deranged -loser-...

jesus christ. where do these people -come- from? and somehow, they always, sooner or later, manage to find each other, and converge in one big happy sticky little blob of toxic evil protoplasm.

Hey, Dick! Suck my left one, okay? You overbearing pompous piece of--so, what, the fact that you hate yourself even more than anyone else gives you the right to hate on women who don't meet your exacting standards and other oppressed minorities, spreading your SPEW wherever you go, you might want to check on the effect YOUR WORDS had on a transwoman you were abusing, yes i said ABUSING, just now, who did -nothing- to deserve it...

oh bitch NO.

fucking male radical "pro-feminists" or whatever the fuck it is. Hey, asshole? On my planet, the first rule of a real ally is, know when it's time to sit your nasty ass down and shut the hell up. The fact that a handful of equally hateful and deranged women are enabling you in your bullying (but in a completely non-patriarchal, non-oppressive way, FUCK yes) does NOT mean you are okay, you are NOT justified, you are NOT excused.

All that crap you've been spewing all over the -women-, yeah they're women goddamit, who've been -trying- to engage you as though you were a sane, decent person and keep getting your poisonous fucking bilge in return? Come on over here and say it to me instead. No, i mean it. Let's -dance,- shitbag. Let's talk about -just how fucking much of an Ally you are.- Fuck, let's talk about what kind of -human being- you are.

yeah, go on, Heart. defend the MAN in your -womens' space- from the meen meen queer tranny-lovin' fuckbot feminist, you know, the one who needs to *get the fuck out of your way.* Him and Stan fucking Goff. Go for it, Heart! Wanna go for the cookie?! C'mon!

jesus -christ.-

i need a drink now.

Anonymous said...

Well, to judge from that little excerpt I should say he has a chip on his shoulder so big he must have difficulty getting onto the bus with it. I'd feel sorry for the people in his life who have to suffer his force-ten self-righteousness, but I suspect that there *aren't* any people in his life. The only way to defuse this revolutionary time-bomb, this terrifying threat to bourgeois complacency, would be to offer him a job on a local paper. Anything would do, t.v. reviews, cats up trees, you name it Mr Jameson.

Anonymous said...

Just read the second installment.

He says, amongst other self-regarding "I'm the raddiest radman there is! I'm so far out there even Hubble has to squint to see me" bullshit:

Men who accept their family responisibilities suck - they are just new-model patriarchs.

Men who let women alone to raise their children suck, because they are evading their family responisibilties.

Did he miss anyone?

As to this: "feminists can suck all the fun out of your life", it couldn't be further from the truth. These days reading stuff like this is about the only thing that still manages to touch my funny bone.

And then there's this Collins Little Gem Dictionary of Radfem cliches: "For the crime of caring about sexual exploitation, prostitution in both its traditional and televised forms (the word pornography magically transforming an illegal act into protected “speech”), they are often accused of being “closet conservatives” who are more than willing to align themselves with religious fundamentalists."

THIS IS SON OF HEART. Or she ought to adopt him. Hey, Rich, if she does adopt you, don't go on so much about "brood mares", eh?

Anonymous said...

By the way: Richard *Leader*.

I bet.

belledame222 said...

well, and apparently he grew up in a conservative church, too--surprise.

you don't suppose--

say, whatever happened to Rick Seelhoff anyway? i'd been meaning to ask.

belledame222 said...

no, that can't be right for a bunch of reasons, never mind, just the dramatist in me, too good to pass up.

seriously tho: what -did- happen to her most recent husband? she still calls herself by his name, i note. i think. "Seelhoff," no? she keeps using it.

belledame222 said...

well, this is an enlightening little story.

http://www.adonismirror.com/07192005_leader_godsgift.htm

belledame222 said...

Making friends and influencing people—gently anyway—has never been my forte,

You don't say.

Anonymous said...

Oooh. I really wish you hadn't posted that last bit of Richard's douchebaggetry. If I'm reading that right, he's saying (among other bigoted bullshit) male rape survivors aren't real, in which case I have several friends I'd like him to meet. Can I have a lobster too?

belledame222 said...

abostively! lobsters all around!

yeh, he's got quite the collection of jaw-dropping asshatteries there.

know what really strikes me? how -happy- he seems. how filled with luuuurve.

belledame222 said...

as far as at least some prominent radical feminists being more than willing to align with religious fundamentalists? well, i could go a spelunkin' for all the y'know actual cases where that's happened, but for now i will just note, this guy himself? as with Heart? WAS a religious fundamentalist. but, i am sure he's totally put all that behind him (Satan), and it's totally a coincidence that in many many ways he still sounds just like 'em, in tone and often content as well.

"you can take the boy out of the Church, but..."

and of course plenty of excellent liberals/leftists/people (p.s. Heart's "not a leftist" by her own words, on account of leftist men suck just as much as the rightist ones do) were raised by zealots and/or wolverines and got over it; just, you know, this guy's so -self-aware.-