Friday, March 02, 2007
What and Who is Fair Game in This War Against the Patriarchy?
Where is the line of acceptable action drawn? May we use any means to make our point or fight our corner? Should we, as radical feminists, be held to account for higher standards of behaviour then we would expect from the enemy camp? Or is anything okay given that often, the ends justify the means? When does disagreement about this line within the radfem sphere become pointless infighting?
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15 comments:
holy sh*t, pippa! i totally agree with you. good for you for standing up and saying what you think. it takes courage!
xoxo, jared
What's she accusing you of trying to score academic points for? There's nothing "adademic" about your argument.
I think she got defensive because she realised you were right, but had done a lot of work already with the image. So if anyone has personal motivations it's not you.
What a shame you left the group though. Hope things can be resolved.
i don't understand why she needed to google "ugly men" to prove her point about sexism. she could have googled "sexist men" and probably come up with tons of pictures of "ordinary joes" and mocked them instead. i mean, sexism and misogyny are not dependent on unattractive men. sean connery, for example, is a misogynist wife-beater and he's also a huge "sex-symbol".
i think it's unfortunate that a feminist would make such a cheap "joke". i expect that kind of thing from MRAers, not radfems.
xoxo, jared
p.s. see? you've got more support than you know!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I'm so proud of you, Pippa! Taking a stand on not attacking people with disabilities, people who appear different, or ugly is not, as Jo said, an academic point.
You got a ton of defensiveness from someone who finds it inconvenient to have to consider these things.
Radfems should know better. Gosh, women have never been attacked for their appearance, huh?
(((Pippa)))
Thanks so much you women. I have been a bit tender aboutt his whole thing today, second guessingmyself, questioning myself. Not now you all weighed in!
I suppose I left the group too quickly, but in all honesty, its a small group, no-one in the group appeared to want to agree with me on the group site and I felt quite unsupported. That's not what I want from a feminist network. I will carry on doing what I do, and if another opportunity to network with other feminists comes along, I'll jump right in there! Again, thanks. Pippa x
That's really shitty and I'm sorry you had to go through it. What jo22 said, especially, about the b.s. "academic" accusation.
BTW, are you the Pippa who was previously on the CATW listserv, a few years back? If so I owe you and a few other women a specific apology and explanation.
If not, disregard and just know how much I respect the stance you've taken with this. That takes great courage.*
Best regards - Victoria
*I used to say "that takes ovaries" but now that I only have one ovary, it feels kind of funny to say. Just like at first I wrote the above as "the stand you've taken with this" instead of "the stance you've taken with this." Being aware of disabilities and physical differences and health matters and the like isn't about being academic or politically correct, it's about being a compassionate and decent human being.
I am the author of the e-mail and I would like to point out that I was talking about another issue ENTIRELY when I was talking about using academic language - when I felt the author of this post used academic language to belittle the point someone was making
It is very easy to quote selectively from something to prove one's point. However if you are going to quote from my e-mails perhaps it would be more honest to quote the entire correspondence from both sides instead of selecting parts. Including the part in which the author of this post called me 'unreasoned and emotional'
Can I also add that the reason I am opposed to using academic language in ordinary non academic discussions is that I feel it is a classic power ploy - trying to make other people feel inferior because one has superior knowledge.
However I would again ask the author of this post to publish the whole correspondence including her entire e-mails. I suggested that the author of this post put her points to the whole group, which she did not do - the discussion was not posted on the board, it was private, so it seems unfair to say the group had criticised her when they knew nothing about it! I also consider the tactic of resigning angrily from the group (who were nothing to do with the discussion) and then posting selected extracts on a personal blog to again be very controlling.
Furthermore, the original image used was not the image the author of the post shows in the link above - the image used did not have any accompanying text and was tinted.
Again I would like to point out that is very easy to make points using information selectively and that the author of this post did not inform me she was going to quote from my e-mails in this blog, or post this - and ask her to consider whether this is ethical behaviour.
Can I please correct (for the sake of accuracy) my point above, I have looked back through the group message board and the exchange of e-mails was posted. They have however not been used here, and I was of course not aware this post was going to be made. I looked at this link because someone advised me to look at the blog to try and understand the author's experiences and found this by accident. I again ask the author to consider if her behaviour is ethical.
Sure I've seen worse debates on the internet, but usually they involved more than one person.
Quite the top effort.
I'm really disappointed that you have dragged NW Fems into this, and given us a bad name. There are many messages of support for your stance on the NW Fems forum- not sure if you have read them. Many of us were busy away in London at the anti-porn conference so couldn't respond immediately to your email. And I think it is a shame you left so hastily as we all could have had a chat online about the differences of opinion. So just to let you know that you would be welcome to rejoin NW Fems.
Oh this is just horrible. I urge you to rejoin NW Fems. Whatever our differences we canNOT let the patriarchy win.
And Pippa, I know your motivations are pure. You haven't given anyone a bad name.
xxx
Thanks Jo. i needed that. X
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