On hetero privilege and feminism.

And now it appears that I have really upset the author of the comic “Feminist Dad” which is a comic satirising the idea that when men father daughters they become born again feminists. The author feels that I have bullied her and tried to force her to ban men from her blog. This is based on my problematising the inclusion of men in feminist discussion after the resident men reacted badly to the comic.

Anyway, it’s got me thinking about other times when I’ve been in similar situations and speaking the brutal truth about gender-based oppression and gender relations. Lesbian separatist theory holds that heterosexuality is a main institution of patriarchy. And that women who receive the privilege and (relative) safety of being heterosexual will always, when it comes right down to the nitty gritty, side with men against their lesbian sisters. We see this played out repeatedly on the internet these days and it’s often interpreted as “defence of men”, that our straight sisters behave as they have been socialised to according to gender roles – as carers and nurturers. I’ve interpreted it this way myself when trying to analyse social interactions that have ended in someone being upset.

But I know that not all hetero feminists fall into this trap. There are radical feminists on the net who don’t do this and who are not male-identified and have given up their investment in het privilege. This got me wondering why do some (or most, it appears) hetero feminists do this? And if it were about just adherence to the rigid gender roles forced onto women in patriarchal society, then why don’t hetero feminists feel as responsible for caring about their lesbian sisters, who they surely understand to be less privileged (and more hated) than they are?

I think it’s about preserving privilege rather than wanting to defend/take care of, men. I say this because I have several straight friends whom I have known for upwards of twenty years, one has been my friend for forty one years. I love them; they love me. They respect my work and my passion for women’s freedom. But each of them has, over the years, when forced to choose between defending or siding with me or defending/siding with a man, they have all, at times, chosen man. But not necessarily a man they care about, or a man whom they are financially dependent upon, in fact none of them are financially dependent on a man. In fact, all of them see men very much the same way I do. All of them have experienced, as I have, violence, abuse, harassment and discrimination at the hands of men individually and collectively. They know the extent of the vile shit that men are capable of doing to us, and the truth of the whole stinking system we are stuck in, and behind closed doors they share my disdain.

But publicly, if it has ever come down to it, and it rarely does anymore because I actively avoid those situations IRL now, they will sacrifice me in favour of het privilege. Not in favour of taking care of an individual man, but in the interests of holding onto that privilege. This is why lesbian and some radical feminists advocate separatism – because most straight women will always protect the bit of privilege they have, in order to survive. The rise of neoliberalism must surely have made this response much worse. This is why radicals have women-only spaces; because having men in our spaces prevents us from achieving feedom for all women. This is also, presumably, why most straight feminists side with men in demonising women-only spaces on and offline. If they don’t they risk the privilege they have as individuals.

We see this happening in online feminist spaces that include men and male-identified women. It’s all well and good until male-identified feminists perceive themselves as being forced to choose – they choose their privilege. And don’t the men reward them for it?

More on the problems of defending Nice Guys in feminist spaces

A comic strip depicting the cognitive dissonance displayed by many men regarding sexism and gender-based oppression, was posted over at News With Nipples last week. Ironically, the comments thread contains multiple examples of this cognitive dissonance, by the resident Nice Guys, who so often seem to achieve sacred cow status in liberal feminist internet pockets. The comment thread began with a stern warning that NWN is in grave danger of losing male readers. Well shit. What could be more important to a feminist blog than the presence of men to give it legitimacy? My participation in the thread ended soon after one helpful Nice Guy who thought my outlook might be different if only I were a bit better educated, suggested that I would “benefit” from reading what some navel-gazing male “philosopher” had to say about patriarchy in the 19th Century. Disappointingly, he was solidly defended in this blatant display of unexamined privilege because – actually, I don’t know why – because men are nice, goddamnit? Because if you are personally resigned to hanging out with dudes then that position can pass for feminist analysis?

This is the problem with liberal interpretations of feminist thought; it always seems to come back to “…just because I said” which kind of leaves us dangling in a theoretical vacuum for the sake of convenience. This is the logic of men, adopted by some women who have some sort of access to male power, usually through het partnerships, and are therefore obliged to defend that scrap of associated privilege by forcing it to the forefront of all feminist discussion, and at the discursive expense of less privileged women. This has come to be known in the feminist blogosphere as the problem of NIGEL (nicest guy who ever lived). But Liberalism is malecentric to the core – it ignores power differentials between men and women and implies that when men and women argue they are doing so from equal positions of power. Trying to incorporate principles of Liberalism into Feminism results in feminism so fragmented that it loses meaning and strength. There is no “feminisms” or “My feminism”. It’s an ideology, a lens, a way of viewing and understanding. You can’t own a little bit of it and customise it to match whatever lifestyle you’re living. It’s not a fucking handbag. This reduces the ideology to random, multiple points of view, robbing it of political intent and diminishing the centuries of work by women to develop critical analysis and theoretical knowledge bases in response to patriarchy. Radfeminism does not concern itself with individual differences between women but rather focuses on the commonality of women.

It’s satisfying to do feminist consciousness-raising in this context, despite the mansplainers and the concern trolls and the sooky la las – whose efforts to silence are like water off a duck’s back to radfems – because you can often see how empowering it is for some women to hear radical thoughts. It’s how most of us radicals came to be radical. Most of us started out as liberal feminists, patiently including, explaining to, and often fucking, men. I think a lot of liberal feminists are really radicals who have yet to bloom into full feminist consciousness. This is when we stop pouring all our time, energy and resources into helping men be better men, or “changing attitudes” of men, and start working for ourselves and other women.

It’s a shame this is often such a long process, and for this I blame men. Men intentionally erase, hide and obscure knowledge, information and historical records from women; information that would prevent us from making the same old mistakes each generation. They once did this through their laws and public policy-making. Now they do it through informal social controls; through excluding women’s voices and perspectives, and deliberately ignoring (or trivialising) women’s contributions to society – for example Anzac Day commemorations. They also do it by trolling and splaining on feminist blogs. Because, if we had better access to the truths of our history, we would already know that if it were just a case of politely explaining to men how they oppress us, then of course they would have already stopped wouldn’t they? We wouldn’t even be having this conversation with them. History, when you look for it, tells us that men already know the deal. They know it, and they like the current set-up just fine, even Nice Men like it just fine.

Pretending to ourselves that if we’re just sweet enough in our individual interactions with individual oppressors, then very soon they will all wake up to our plight and the world will be a different place, is fundamentally supportive of male power. This is because it keeps women divided, and hoodwinked into believing a false narrative that obfuscates the reality of patriarchy. If we can’t see the reality we lose the ability to understand complex ideas, then we are losing the ability to form complex responses to them. Male power benefits from this and male power hurts women and children.

To advocate “changing attitudes” as a response to men’s relentless systemic, institutional and individual exploitation of and violence against women and children – unspeakably vile acts of systemic and individual violence – is to dangerously under-estimate the reality of the lives of women and children, globally. It fails to notice that men just don’t want to change anything, not even nice men, and they will actively resist all attempts, if not through violence or the threat of violence, then by abusing their discursive power through all forms of media. Feminist thought developed for a reason. There is no point noticing Things, in this case the cognitive dissonance of men when it comes to male supremacy, if we ignore the reason for noticing. We have to examine why it’s A Thing and what the implications of that Thing are. What’s the bloody point otherwise? If we don’t take it further then it’s just one person saying “Look this is A Thing.” and the rest of us saying “Oh.” It is also disturbingly nudging the realm of rape culture to tell women that they should not be allowed to have discussions or organise, without including men, and to advocate against women-only discussion is to do just that. Further, if we accept liberal logic about the effectiveness of “changing attitudes” then radicals would not be so demonised in liberal circles. Our patient explanations would have solved that problem and our libfem sisters would support us.

Sick of tippy-toeing around Nice Men on feminist blogs?

Are you tired of your right to define your experience being hijacked by seemingly well-meaning men? Are discussions about sexism and male violence constantly impeded by the need to hold men’s hands and reassure them that really the male supremacy thing is not his fault? You don’t have to put up with it. There are a lot of radical feminist sites where you will find your views and stories are welcomed and affirmed instead of rendered invalid in favour of supporting male ego. There are also links on this site to internet spaces showing examples of men who don’t concern troll and mansplain us into silence.

When we try to include Nice Men in discussions of sexism and women’s oppression we are not arguing from positions of equal power. Nice men need to learn to be quiet and listen for a change instead of explaining our oppression to us and telling us how we’re wrong. Genuinely nice men do not demand that we accommodate and prioritise their delicate feelings in our discussions. Preventing women from discussing supports male power and male power hurts women and children. Women discussing and supporting each other is crucial to women’s survival – it really is ok to put our own needs first, in fact the survival of the planet and our children depends on it.

Welcome to High Dudgeon, a womancentric blog. Please feel free to look around here and don’t forget to check out all the great radfem blogs listed in the side bar.

Cheers.

Linda Radfem

Announcing Radfem-ological Images

A new radical feminist website which advances a radical feminist analysis of media images. The site recognises the inadequacy of liberalism as a lens through which to view, understand and respond to media, and describes a liberal feminist analysis as a “theoretical dead end”. A radical analysis responds to the ways in which media supports male power and names the ways men benefit from this at women’s expense. Which is the whole fucking point of feminism, after all.

Isn’t it?

Drug law reform

A new drug law reform report has just been released and states a few truths that seem to get lost in mainstream drug policy debates. A copy of the report can be seen here.

Titled: “The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen”, the report focuses on the social impact of drug laws rather than on drug use. As someone who has worked with drug “offenders” in the criminal justice system for several years, I welcome the report. It’s about time. I also think the authors have been really smart by framing the issue as being one about the safety and wellbeing of children. No doubt this was to counter all the screams of “family values” advocates who will claim that any move in the direction of de-criminalisation or legalisation will harm people’s kids as it will remove deterrents. Parents don’t want their children getting into drugs but I’m sure they equally don’t want their kids to be imprisoned and experience all the attendant trauma, social exclusion and health problems that go with a prison sentence.

This report is highly relevant to radical feminist struggle. Because, as I have written about before, women are suffering from the harsh criminal justice response to problematic drug use in the name of a so-called “war on drugs”.
As NSW drug court judge, Roger Dive , once stated: “When women go to gaol it’s different from men; men can just get on with the sentence but women have the worry of all their caring and familial responsibilities to deal with.” That quote, by the way, is from memory of a personal communication. There is more to it than that of course but if advocates of drug law reform want to go with the “family values” line, then it can be seen how the criminalisation of women drug users is devastating to families and children.

Like I said, there’s more to it, much more. Let’s remember, the increase in rates of incarceration for women has been around 60% over the last decade and a half or so, compared to 15% for men (Sawer et al 2009). Further to this, over 80% of women in the NSW prison system are there for drug/ drug-related offences. Having worked closely with this client group I can tell you that the majority of these women are from backgrounds steeped in social and economic disadvantage. It is rare for a criminalised woman not to have a horrendous history of experiencing the extremes of male violence. Poverty, violence and social exclusion lead to mental health issues and/or self-medication. As critical criminologist, Rob White, states “When people are socially excluded they will find their own ways to participate…” (2008). This is the source of most problematic drug use for women.

I make the distinction between problematic drug use and drug use, for a reason. Lots of people use drugs without ever ending up in the criminal justice system. The higher up the patriarchy you are, for example, the more white/middle class you are, the less chance you have of getting busted. Not only that but the higher your capacity to participate in society, the less likely you will be to allow your drug choices to take over your life. You have more to lose. I know people who run businesses, pay mortgages, hold down jobs, in other words, participate in normative socially-valued ways, but who enjoy their drugs on the weekend. The less isolated a person is the easier it is to keep drugs as an amusing pastime, which may or may not lead to health problems, but never spirals out of control and into offending behaviour, unemployment etc. Therefore, the tough on drugs response is disproportionately impacting on certain social groups, and particularly on women, indigenous and non-indigenous.

I can’t stress enough the role of men’s violence in all of this. Most people reading here will be familiar with the dynamics of domestic violence. Many women become trapped in domestic violence situations that involve a pattern of shared recreational drug-using. Male partners encourage women to join them in using and dealing, and women protect them of course. They risk carrying drugs, even into gaols, in order to appease violent partners. They risk stealing in order to fund a partner’s habit. I have known women who were pimped by abusive men, sometimes from a very young age, and intentionally introduced to drugs as a form of control.

The current harsh treatment of women with drug problems is doing very little except exacerbating all of the problems that have led to problematic drug use and criminal justice involvement in the first place. Going to gaol has an adverse effect on women’s health, decreases life expectancy, increases the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder depression and anxiety, increases the risk of further violence and smashes familial and kinship networks (Health of Australian Prisoners 2009).

Drug law reform is one step towards ameliorating the long term social consequences of the war on drugs; there needs to be more work done in the areas of affordable housing, education, employment, health and men’s violence – all the social determinants of offending behaviour, if we are to take an honest and holistic approach to this issue.

Trans-centric feminism and lesbophobia

Well ding dong! This is (at least) the second time I have seen a post on this site attacking a lesbian feminist human rights activist immediately after she has died. Adrienne Rich, a key contributor to feminist thought, died recently. Rich coined the term “compulsory heterosexuality” among other insights, and she deserves better for her brilliance and her significant contribution to women’s struggle. The same site published a similar post immediately following the death of Mary Daly. Even MRAs don’t usually stoop that low. It horrifies to see the extent that male-identified women have been trained to do the dirty work of men in the vilification of lesbian women.

Refer to this excellent post by Dragon Dyke, regarding the expansion of the trans movement and the appropriation of oppression. Men have not been content with appropriation of women’s oppression; they are now looking to appropriate disability and no doubt work to have their needs positioned front and centre simply by claiming to feel like a disabled person inside. I wonder how far this nonsense will go before funfems wake up.

This comment from the aforementioned thread:

She may have fought for cis women, but she certainly didn’t fight for women

…says so much doesn’t it? She only fought for “cis” women (biological women) but she didn’t fight for the real women (transwomen). This tells us so much about how “transwomen” see women – they hate us just as all men do, and they see us as lesser just as all men do. They centre their “human rights” issues around sexual access to women just as MRAs do. They reek of male entitlement and misogyny.

As straight/male-partnered women, the libfems who run this site will likely never be in a position where they are expected to have sex with “transwomen”. This post by factcheckme describes the new “theory” called “the cotton ceiling” which states, unbelievably, that lesbians need to be trained to accept penised people as sexual partners. Not wanting to have sex with a person who has a penis is being framed as “transphobic” bigotry, and those penises are apparently not male – they are female penises. There are workshops held, similar to those run by the PUA/Seduction community, where “transwomen” can go to learn how to break down lesbian’s resistence to having sex with them. Get it? The cotton ceiling refers to women’s underwear, a barrier to men’s entitlement to access our bodies. It also steals feminist theory regarding the glass ceiling which prevents women from advancing in the work place – not even an acknowledgment of that! Just typing this makes me feel nauseous.

I have to wonder if funfems have really considered all of this, and if so, why are they so quiet on these issues? Do they simply not understand the implications for lesbian women? Have they forgotten that it has been lesbian women at the forefront of a lot of the activism aiming for the liberation of women, achieving gains that they now benefit from? Do they understand the implications for their children? If their children are encouraged to resist rigid gender roles, and most feminists fun or otherwise, do encourage this in their children, then do they not see how discourses of “gender dysphoria” will then be used against them? Do they understand that children have rights? These are not rhetorical questions; I am genuinely desperate to know the answers. How can funfems and other women who support transfolks in their oppressive agendas, not hear their lesbian sisters saying “Hey. This is oppressive to us. Please stop.” Please stop promoting this rape culture, erasure of lesbians, and pleease stop slandering, from the safety of your het-privilege, our greatest human rights activists, living or dead. I’m just so tired of this lesbophobia.

I wonder where it will all end. But I ask our funfem sisters to please consider our commentary and engage with our ideas instead of pressing on with the “transphobe” mantra that has been taught to them by men.