Friday, June 08, 2007

Don't let the door hit ya where the Patriarchy split ya

Heart: I mean, when a LESBIAN can’t perform at a Dyke march because male-born people are pissed because she plays at Michfest? That is male supremacy happening right there. That is patriarchy, right there.

Pretty good, right, LESBIANS & others? But small beer compared to the response it evokes:

Louisa May Alcott: Yup. And with “lesbians” as the eager handmaidens. Bitterness. This is why I no longer consider myself a “lesbian” separatist, just a separatist.


--kh porting over from yep still the same damn thread, finishing with this observation:

Let it end here, God, 19 short of 500. The undead author of Little Women abandons LESBIANISM because some LESBIANS won't hate transsexuals. I guess this makes her a non-cuddly post-LESBIAN.


WooHoo! I'm a Handmaiden! Hey, bfp and BA, can I join you in the Oppressor Morph Dance?

EDIT!!! to THIS SONG!! my FAVORITE THEME TUNE FOR PARANOIACS EVER!! which, because i am slow, i did NOT realize until now was sung by one of my favorite bloggers! I love you, Miss Prism! get that jam out of your leg soon so you can get back to singing and posting!

45 comments:

evil_fizz said...

I'm so glad someone other than me wants to crawl though those threads.

I think I have heard everything I needed to.

belledame222 said...

I'm letting my minions do most of the work at this point (yes, even handmaidens have minions). but, yeah, i think we're done. except for the mocking. i don't think i'm quite done with the mocking.

Anonymous said...

Wait, you're Jewish, right? Are you sure those minions aren't actually minyans?

belledame222 said...

are you the tenth man? because otherwise, no.

Anonymous said...

Pshaw, with gender fluidity we can all be men!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of IBTP, I got this link from there:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,278887,00.html

Would you buy that computer?

Warning: Fox link.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

oops, i was commenting about something else that wasn't linked here!!!

belledame222 said...

or, wait, a -new- new definition? god, now what?

Nanette said...

Well you did it. I finally had to go read a little bit of that thread, falling out eyeballs or no. I started from the bottom and one of the first things I came across was this, from someone named Justicewalks:

"What is upsetting to people is that, despite gender and race being socially constructed institutions, sex and phenotype are immutable. While the ambitious black woman can rise above the expectations society has set for her, and come to occupy a place normally reserved for white men, she cannot ever start actually growing straight blond hair from her very own scalp, or spewing forth jizz from her very own loins.

And even if she did, it wouldn’t negate the fact that for the first decades of her life, she had naturally kinky hair, menstruated, and scrubbed white people’s toilets, which is a whole other can of worms.

But she can’t do it anyway, so why even have the discussion, right?


Me, I thought of informing her that scrubbing white people's toilets was not an immutable fact of black women's existence but, considering all the rest of the junk she was saying on that thread (and the fact that the conversation is well over), I decided that it wouldn't do much good.

She's a bit off on the hair thing too, but anyway... I do wish that especially people who have no idea what they are talking about and who apparently don't even know any black people would just leave us out of the radfem theology altogether. Not to say that black women can't be radfems or something, but if we're not scrubbing toilets in their world, then we're speaking ebonics and bebopping around listening to hip-hop (with the argument that transwomen are like white people wanting to be black and doing the above in blackface or something).

Like many bigots, they seem to consider trotting out the black folk to hide their bigotry behind as the ultimate final word.

So I guess I'll just fall back on the old tried and true saying. Transhate? NOT in my name.

belledame222 said...

...you know, I really don't understand why anyone wants to appropriate someone else's -suffering.- I mean, i do know why--and after all it's not the -actual experience- she (and others like that) wants, just the food for her martyrdom complex--but, I don't -get- it. Isn't the whole point to make things -better?-

maybe that's what it is, wrt the trans thing and her. More projection. How dare -they- appropriate -our suffering.- Suffering is what makes us wimmin SPESHUL.

...the idea that someone might actually just y'know want to be -happy- is apparently anathema to her.

belledame222 said...

oh god oh god.

and um, per the spewing jizz--well, i'll leave it to someone else to -explain- to the poor dear about female ejaculation.

anyway, i think she wants the Solipsists Club, down the hall.


jeebus.

belledame222 said...

"phenotype," whatthefuckever.

they seem -awfully- invested in insisting that it can never, ever change--for "revolutionaries."

oh yeah, and they have no power. To oppress, to do anything.

It reads less like any sort of political theorizin' than a VC Andrews "novel." Especially when lemon drop speaks: beautiful blonde bombshell, tragically abused, at one with the Peoples of the Earth, pressing the Oppressed Wimminz to her magnanimous bosom (gerroff me gerroff me), shedding tears...and you -know- that the end is always the same, no matter how determined our tilted-chin heroine is...

feh.

J. Goff said...

It's probably a blessing that thread has now ended, for the most part. The less tweakings by Mar Iguana the better. And Heart, well, Heart. Yeah...

Anonymous said...

It's not a blessing! It hasn't reached 500! Someone post something!

Anonymous said...

Wait, i'm not sure it makes sense even IF we're MEN.

belledame222 said...

well, mandos, you could do it yourself, if you weren't BANNED.

Heart lives somewhere in the beautiful unspoiled Pacific Northwest, I think. nowhere near any compounds, i'm sure of it.

Anonymous said...

Well, it seems pretty certain that we'd better brace ourselves for another round of gorram trans-bashing from certain quarters of the blogosphere. I have a feeling this one is going to be really nasty.

::dusts off her flameproof suit::

J. Goff said...

I have a feeling this one is going to be really nasty.

If it is, we need to have some sort of anti-anti-trans blog carnival. Because this bullshit is getting on my last nerve, and we need some sort of positive energy to oppose this open hatred.

Anonymous said...

How about http://transe-generation.com/ ?
It is a comic done by a ftm about the lighter/funnier parts of being trans*

belledame222 said...

A bunch of us have been talking about various permutations of carnivals and/or group blogs for a while. Generally they seem to pick up a flurry of energy, get super-ambitious, and then fizzle out.

maybe i'll just start something. "Carnival of Bent Fems" or something, i'd been meaning to for a while.

Cassandra Says said...

Belle - Trawling through the crap so the rest of us don't have to.
What is Heart's fucking problem? Seriously? I know how she treasures her "most oppressed" status, but did her mommy never teach her to share?
If that lot are now writing off actual, non "political" lesbians I'd say that's a net gain for lesbians everywhere. Who wants Heart poking her nose in their business? Let her go sit in her treehouse and sulk.

belledame222 said...

If that lot are now writing off actual, non "political" lesbians I'd say that's a net gain for lesbians everywhere.

EXACTLY.

I'm just waiting to see if she tries to pull the Saruman crap she did on bfp. well she knows better than to try me i expect. but, you know.
"a friend in need is a friend indeed"

Cassandra Says said...

"I'm just waiting to see if she tries to pull the Saruman crap she did on bfp. well she knows better than to try me i expect. but, you know.
"a friend in need is a friend indeed"

Did I miss something again? I'm confused.

belledame222 said...

o, you know, in the aftermath of the last (one of them) blowup...

eh. she just has this way of, when she's trying to make nice she's actually almost more insulting than when the dainty little white gloves are off. -I- think. I just remember being particularly rankled by her tone at bfp's in this one long thread, i think it was maybe the final straw for bfp, not sure of the timeline really, anyway.

belledame222 said...

but anyway, you know, she's a -special- white lady, with asterisks (recognize! after ALL SHE'S DONE FOR YA), so I'm just wondering rather eagerly if now we're gonna learn about all the -sacrifices- she made in leaving the World of Hetero Privilege. One of these days she might even drop the most recent husband's surname from her moniker.

belledame222 said...

oh yeah, i forgot, there was also this earlier bit, as well fisked by Veronica:

In my view it is not possible for females to discriminate against transpeople. That’s the province of men and only men.

OKAY!

belledame222 said...

or, here

Over on bfp’s or somebody’s site a short while ago there was mention of a carnival of some kind, I think about coming up as a person of color. And then the invite went out also to all people who were “LBGT” to participate, presumably even if they are white.

Analyze that. If you are white but LBGT you may join the discussion of growing up a person of color. BUT. If I were to join that discussion, I guarantee you I would get frozen out straight up or eventually because of my views about the T in LBGT, not to mention, what is it about lbgt which would makes any of the white lbgt people relevant to a discussion of growing up a person of color? And you aren’t invited to that discussion straight up, cm, which is just wrong. The alliance is between this nebulous LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ and “persons of color” iow, but what that means is, someone like Amp—basically a het white man (with racist porn on his site)—may pontificate on and on about race because for some reason he calls himself “Q” or someone included int he LBGT thing because they are, newest letter, what is it, “seeking” or “interested” or something like that, but someone with decades of actual life amongst people of color, vested in their lives, like you say, with a stake in, is supposed to sit by and what, listen to clueless white people pontificate cluelessly on.


which, o where to begin, really...

Anonymous said...

I smell oblivion coming. Is there any plausible revolutionary class left for these people to set upon as a basis for a post-lesbian politics? The trend is toward increasing stigmatization of this kind of bigotry by all kinds of feminists. Even people who’ve indulged their fiesty transphobic crazy aunts until now increasingly will feel pressure to distance themselves from them. They seem completely lacking in competent ideologues, & their 'theories' are a farrago of transparent, shifting & mutually contradictory rationalizations. Few people of normal intelligence will be persuaded such an embarrassing mess. Groups that offer nothing but poorly disguised raw malice finally marginalize themselves. In ten years, there may be nothing left but a scattering of back-country Idaho survivalists. ‘Politics’ devolves into a slow-motion process of psychological decline.

In short, this is one fight that's ours to lose.

belledame222 said...

Honestly, I think the only way this bunch could get any "revolutionary" creds at this point would be to pick up some guns and start going after some inferior male oppressors. they're like 90% of the way there already, some of 'em, seems to me.

and no, she said, for any beady little eyes, I am certainly not endorsing any such action.

Anonymous said...

You know, do you think that any of them are reading this? Or have you been so shunned that they wouldn't pollute themselves that way?

While they go funny places with some of their premises, I for one don't think that they're entirely wrong about the general idea, but as you know, I'm a bit more sympathetic to Twistyan radfem ideology than to this other variety.

Anonymous said...

How dare -they- appropriate -our suffering.- Suffering is what makes us wimmin SPESHUL. BD

"Suffering is mine, sayeth the Lady. I will recriminate."

I'm just waiting to see if she tries to pull the Saruman crap she did on bfp. BD

She tried it over at Alas, too, telling Ampersand that though she was still mad at him (in fact she has persistently accused him of being a conscious Patriarchal agent, not to mention a racist pornographer) she didn't hate him, she just - in a big-sisterly kind of way - wanted him to consider what nefarious uses those "baby-blogging" photos could be put to. This from a woman who has made a habit of posting pictures of her own progeny, both sexes and all ages, at The Margins etc. since time out of mind.

And that's the most astonishing thing about Heart, isn't it? She's so fucking naive. She really imagines that if she chooses to ignore something, then everybody else is honour-bound to forget it.

"I can't see it, so what's to see?"

Still, there's no denying her entertainment value.

belledame222 said...

mandos, my latest post is actually a quote from a second wave white probably-radical feminist that I have always very much admired. I may be trying to elucidate the reasons why I still admire Russ and not these other clowns (including Twisty, who in certain superficial ways probably resembles her ideologically, at least the 1971 author speaking there) later on.

Tom: presumably she did this -before- pr0nGate, no?

belledame222 said...

She really imagines that if she chooses to ignore something, then everybody else is honour-bound to forget it.

"I can't see it, so what's to see?"


Classic narcissism, really.

belledame222 said...

You know, do you think that any of them are reading this? Or have you been so shunned that they wouldn't pollute themselves that way?

Well, in the wake of this latest bidness, i went over to Heart's, and noticed she'd put up a long apologia for Sheila Jeffreys, a few days after I'd excoriated her.

and Renegade, who's even more of an untouchable in that crowd, seems to keep getting hits and comments from...certain types/sites.

so. no, i'm sure they don't.

(checks lipgloss, then)

"HI MAW!!!"

belledame222 said...

oh, and I love when people reassure you, out of the blue, that they "don't hate you." Almost as good as "c'mere, I won't hurtcha..."

Anonymous said...

Tom: presumably she did this -before- pr0nGate, no? BD

You mean the hypocritical comment? No, no. She made it just a couple of months ago. Take a look.

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/04/02/baby-blogging-sydney-napping-with-teddy-bears-also-im-taking-off-for-a-week/#comments

That's a pretty long address - I'm not sure if it's going to appear in full. This at any rate is how she begins:

Dear god, Amp. I’ve been mad at you forever, really mad, and I’m not over it, and so I don’t post here anymore, but I don’t dislike you, and honestly, I feel protective, both of you and of the people you share your house with, including your littles. I’m posting in good faith, honestly.

Face of BRASS.

belledame222 said...

oh. my. god.

you can make tinyurl for the link. there's also a way to embed but i dunno how to explain without just making one appear.

belledame222 said...

meanwhile, speaking of chutzpah, this is just...goddam.

belledame222 said...

...okay, I'm looking at the link. i see. not as totally out of left field as i thought, then, she's not the only one. but still:

CROTCH SHOTS??

what is -wrong- with some people? I-- *ew*.

am i insane?

and yes, when i saw the photo i figured what her objection was, but would i have if i didn't already know she was kretching about possible pedophiles? i sure hope not.

ew ew ew. and also: ew.

belledame222 said...

and yeah, the thing is, they've been saying that -already-, for ages now; and why? Because he's a MAY-UN and, separately, he did some deal wherein adult pr0n funds his site, indirectly.

give me a fucking break.

Anonymous said...

littles? LITTLES?

Who talks like that? "Bring-on-the-Apocalypse" survivalists? Full Quiver Matriarchs? Jedi Knights? Oh no, wait on, that was "younglings", wasn't it.

Sorry to see Ren so hurt by witchy. I understand well the desire to maintain solidarity between different kinds of feminism, but the fact is that the well-known internet radfems, though they sometimes talk about an accommodation, are only interested in victory. For them, diplomacy is just warfare by another name, and if you reach out for the olive-branch you'll most likely lose an arm.

Anonymous said...

Nanette: Justice Walks is black.

belledame222 said...

Interesting.

Nanette said...

Thanks, anonymous. I read upthread, and so she is. I guess she thus knows at least one black woman.

While it troubles and saddens me greatly to see black people, especially black women, participating in and encouraging the marginalization and dehumanization of other oppressed/on the fringe groups, we all know it happens.

Witness the black homobigots, many of whom seem to have sprung up and into the news almost out of nowhere.

Justicewalk's lived experience as a woman of color, and whatever has shaped her views, is of course her own - I can't speak to that.

I can and do - in my own name and out of my own lived experiences - reject the bigotry that she manifests as a result of whatever has brought her to this point, though.