THE DANGEROUS TALE OF THE MRES AND THEIR ALLIES

* MRE = Male rights extremists.

This post is intended to shed light on all that has happened, so far, to radfem2013. What has happened should be important to those on the radical left and all feminists everywhere – but thanks to alliances made between trans/queers with MRE‘s, it’s very difficult for us to be heard in the public domain without the distortions flooding our truths and drowning them out. 

There is a reason why, whenever I go to refer to anti-RF blog posts, the sticky “L” on my keyboard leads me to write “bog”. That is far more apt. Bogs which are full of misleading lies, distortions, inaccurate interpretations of what radical feminism, as a movement, is, including a continual misapplication of the law in order to attempt to censor our beliefs. Bogs which pull you down more and more into the mud of obfuscation and red herrings so that the political significance and/or consequences of the MRE ‘s (Male Rights Extremists) actions are lost

DISPELLING MYTHS ABOUT RADFEM2013

I want to dispel some myths floating about right now in the social media about radfem2013 and very clearly lay them out as, it seems, that some trans/queer activists and their allies are missing both the facts and the wider implications about what has happened, so far, in relation to radfem2013.

Stavvers, a vocal anti-radical feminist blogger, did a bog post which was re-tweeted (so far) 59 times. I haven’t checked to see how many men that includes but I am sure we can assume that extremist right wing men are among them – despite her rather weak attempts to paint some distance between her political position and MREs. Her jubilant support of yet another venue folding under pressure in relation to a radfem conference booking hinges completely on her mistaken belief that radfem2013 has been rejected by London Irish Centre/the company with whom the booking is with -Off-To-Work – on the grounds of “hate speech”

I can categorically assure her that this is absolutely false. The real reason (detailed below) is due to MRE intimidation of the venue and its staff. I would also encourage her, and anyone else, to look at our conference website and see we are completely transparent with what we’re about. We wish to discuss male violence, and gender, within an international context. We want to provide a creative, supportive space for women. We support the rights of autonomous disadvantaged groups to meet. We claim a right to meet around specific issues relating to biology such as reproductive rights. None of this is unreasonable. It is far from the false accusation of “hate speech”. Our analysis of gender is not rooted in “hate”, it is rooted in the way in which gender has been structured under patriarchy to oppress women.

THE STAVVERS BOG AND ITS SMEARS

Stavvers starts her bog by tweeting “Please read and share why the #radfem2013 venue pulled out. There’s been a lot of myths spread”. The bitter irony of her last sentence not lost on me, I @rubyfruit2 attempted to explain to her that she was wrong. She merely repeated this rumour about hate speech and blocked me. That is how nonsensical the targeting of radical feminists has become. Someone in the know tries to explain rationally, and someone in complete ignorance shuts down any possibility of dialogue. You don’t have to agree with our politics, but the implications of stavvers’ words and behaviour, and that of her allies/friends, is that radical feminists are not allowed to critique gender, and the role it plays in oppressing women, without being targeted with hostility and hatred. In a dangerous reversal, she states: “To some women, the RadFem2013 conference organisers and speakers are a persistent and dangerous threat.” As one of the organisers, perhaps you’d like to tell me exactly how *I* am a threat to any other woman. That is a despicable statement and one straight out of a MRE handbook. I find this bog and its false claims based on a MRE smear campaign unacceptable and so should you, whoever you are.

MRE HARASSMENT OF VENUE

The real reason for the company’s concerns about the booking is confirmed by Off To Work, (the company which took the booking). In a facebook statement, it says the concerns are “about staff safety”. There were numerous incidents of intimidation, within less than a week, which targeted the centre, with the clear aim of putting so much pressure on the venue that it would capitulate and withdraw its commitment to honour the booking. It is no secret that the MREs claim responsibility for these acts. They say so on their website and boasted of their intentions to intimidate the venue until it caved in. In a post dated 15 April, MRA London stated, as a direct threat to the centre: “we will publically manacle you to their hateful ideology”(sic). Police reports made as a result of MRA intimidation are still under investigation. We’re not at liberty to reveal further details about the intimidation tactics which may make someone, who has inadvertently become caught up in this simply because they’re doing the wrong job at the wrong time, vulnerable. I have the utmost sympathy and compassion for the targeted staff and would, in all matters, wish to protect and support them.

Off to Work have put a statement on their Facebook page, which you can see here: https://www.facebook.com/offtowork/posts/10151561719698958 and there will be more to say at a later date either by the company or the organisers of radfem2013, but this statement makes clear that Off To Work confirms our version of events, rather than stavver’s:

“Our cancellation of the booking was a very difficult decision, but one that we have made to protect the safety of our venue staff……We wish Radfem a successful conference.”

MRE HARASSMENT OF RADFEMS

We too are targets for the MREs. Despite being a responsible and considerate organiser who has fought against social injustices all my life, I don’t doubt that I am already a target-in-waiting for the MREs. Threats have turned to us as organisers and to our attendees. There comes a time in our lives when it is right to openly speak truths. For me, that time has come. I will not stay silent when a group of thugs attempt to bully and harass their way into disrupting a peaceful, lawful conference to talk about the rights of women. They are bullying women who are already survivors of multiple abuse and who are living with trauma. That the irony of this is lost on those so blinkered by hatred towards radical feminists (and yet consider themselves champions of “intersectional” social injustices) resonates with me

There are examples all across the net of how feminists and radical feminists are targeted by this male extremist group. They offered a reward of one thousand dollars to find out the real name of a woman and, once they got it, they “doxxed” her. They showed a video of another woman and harassed her with death threats and other nasty tactics so badly that she disappeared. There is story after story on their website about how these thugs consider themselves “victims” of a feminist conspiracy of power and how (radical) feminists are out to destroy the male class through “mass genocide“. The reality and truths of women’s lives is twisted to paint men as victims and feminism as a dominant force in society

MALESTREAM PRESS DISTORTIONS

In her bog post, Stavvers relies on a quote in an article in The Sunday Times to make her argument about why radical feminists are not the innocent victims of an MRE intimidation campaign. We are currently investigating with Off To Work and London Irish centre how such a false and misleading quote came into the public domain because no one is claiming responsibility for it. So far, we’ve drawn a blank as to how it happened and have launched a series of formal press complaints about the article. It should be clear from the Off To Work statement that concerns about “hate speech” did not lead to their decision. The following statement; “We have made this difficult decision based entirely on our available infrastructure and the wellbeing of our staff [...] without pressure from any group concerned with the subject matter of the conference”. In other words, accusations of “hate speech”, breaches of equality and diversity policies, or legislation, were not part of the decision-making process. I draw you back to this: The venue has made the decision “to protect the safety of our venue staff“. There is also a failure to protect a vulnerable group who have made a booking transparently and in good faith. The way the Sunday Times article is written with a first paragraph stating that there were complaints that some involved with radfem2013 “advocate violence against men”, when there’s absolutely no evidence of any such thing, suggests that MREs are working behind the scenes somewhere and it was a put up job to shit-stir, using a malestream media, to create problems for the venue and organisers and mask the truth about bully boy tactics.

COLLABORATION BETWEEN TRANS/QUEER/ALLIES AND MRES

As I watch the tweets and the bog posts mushrooming, both this year, and last, I observe collaboration between those who are uncritical about gender and MREs and similarities in approach between the 2. Here are some of them:

* Presenting the political views of radfems in an inaccurate, unfair and ludicrous light
* Once they have established the false presentation of what radical feminism is, arguing with that false presentation as if it’s fact
* Singling out individual women who call themselves radical feminist and claiming that they represent radical feminism or all radical feminist views (In fact, the movement is diverse and many claim to be radical feminist but, of course, as a movement for social change, we’d wish to discuss those differences internally)
* Shutting down debate, or opposing presentations of radical feminism, by calling an individual names (e.g. “bigot” in the case of queer allies and “man-hater” in the case of MREs)
* Using a range of intimidation tactics to prevent us from meeting such as writing emotive but untrue emails to anyone who‘ll listen, doxxing, claiming they know that what we do is unlawful or contravenes policies etc

In an incredible reversal relating to just who is aligning themselves with MRES, stavvers’ bog states: I hope RadFem2013 giving MRAs the credit for something they didn’t do isn’t the beginning of an alliance forming. Allying with those who seek to intimidate you. Yes, that makes sense.

WIDER POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

In my view, cancelling the booking is the wrong way of “protecting venue staff”. There are numerous ways staff could be protected but cancelling a booking for a group of women who’ve done nothing wrong sends out a very dangerous message. It says bully boy tactics get you somewhere. It has long term implications for feminism, radical feminism, and the ability of “neutral” venues to freely provide a platform for events about social injustice without fear for their own safety. Did your mum give you the same advice mine gave me when I was at risk of attack from school bullies? She said “Fight back, if you shrink away, they will do it all the more until they get what they want”. And so I did and they backed off. Businesses have a responsibility to cater for, and protect, vulnerable groups and, despite the unacceptable pressure brought to bear, that is a reasonable expectation, particularly, as everything was thoroughly discussed beforehand.

That a venue is being bullied out of offering a booking, that radfems are in fear their real life details will be revealed and “doxxed” leading to death threats, should be of grave concern for those for whom radical change matters. Instead, stavvers and friends/allies focus on myths, lies, and distortions about radical feminism, even equating radical feminism, (concerned with the well-being of females), with MREs themselves. It would be hard to find two sets of agendas more opposed – but stavver’s attempt to align the politics is an example of how queers/allies have colluded with the MREs to mask the real threat in this story. And the real threat is that women coming together to politically organise, and anyone who supports them, have, and are, bombarded with terrorist tactics until something caves.

I know it’s such a cliché but I can’t get out of my head “First they came for the radical feminists but I was not a radical feminist…” Then they came for the socialist feminists and so on across the different strands of feminism until “And then they came for the non-political non-gender conforming people and there was no one left to speak for me”. You don’t have to like all radical feminists or the politics of radical feminism but what has happened, so far, with radfem2013 sets a dangerous precedent for all women, all feminists and all those involved in the struggle for radical social change. There’s a lot of myths flying about. Stavvers, do the radical left a favour and withdraw yours.

(This blog post is not on behalf of anyone but myself )

INTERIM LEGAL STATEMENT BY RADFEM2013 ORGANISERS

A separate update is circulating about the progress of the conference. In the meantime, this statement is about the legal position in relation to radfem2013.

We understand that women are worried and anxious due to the sheer amount of lies, misinformation, libel and distortions flying about. We want to reassure you of several facts:

1. From the beginning we have received advice and guidance from a solicitor and are reassured by “leading counsel” (a barrister) of the legalities, on numerous grounds, including the Equality Act 2010, that our right to meet as women is lawful

2. This advice has been shared freely with London Irish Centre (LIC). The written, formal legal advice demonstrates, contrary to a false and misleading article produced by the Sunday Times, that no law or equality policies would be breached on either LIC’s part or ours by holding/hosting our conference.

3. The Sunday Times contains inaccurate information and quotes about the conference, our speakers and organisers and we have placed a formal complaint with the paper stating that numerous points in the PCC’s editors’ code have been breached. We have asked for an immediate retraction and an apology. Should the paper refuse to do so, we have instructed our solicitor to take the matter further.

We understand how frustrating it is when you don’t have information about something so important to you. Please bear in mind that we are all volunteers and have to also work or carry out unpaid work in the home and, at the same time, we‘re working hard on legal and other matters so that women can have an awe-inspiring conference. We have been inspired and touched by the tremendous outpouring of support we have received from a diverse range of women (and men) who can see the implications of intimidation tactics by men’s rights extremists for wider radical social movements, particularly feminist groups. We know we are exploring the legalities, not just for us, but for the right of all feminist/women’s groups to meet in peace without being intimidated by bullying tactics from male rights extremists groups.

We intend to put out a fuller statement about the legal position at a more appropriate time

Radfem2013 Organisers

EVICT A MAN-ILLIONAIRE – UNRECOGNISED MALE DOMINATION IN MIXED ACTIVISM

There’s quite a buzz around today. All’s been a bit quiet on the direct action front after a burst of imaginative activism in 2011-12 by UK uncut. I liked a lot of it, I joined in for a while. I like the “non-hierarchical” fluid nature of it because that reminds me of radical feminist activism in days gone by. I became disillusioned after a short time as, gradually, my role, and that of the few other women involved, was increasingly sidelined and I found myself, instead, acting as “appeaser” to stop male aggression and violence breaking out during actions (from all parties of men – security, police, passers-by and male activists on the left). This was aggression because they were, or felt, “provoked” by other men, for whatever reason. There are numerous accounts of sexual violence and aggression towards women as part of the occupy movements (other feminists have written about this). There is the appalling account of the SWP’s complete failure to address male entitlement and privilege within their processes, even in the face of women “comrades” naming them and describing how the situation could have been handled differently. Women publically told how devastating the failures impacted on sisters involved (Read the transcript here: http://socialistunity.com/swp-conference-transcript-disputes-committee-report/#.UWk_88pWKIB ) It made no difference – a report exonerating a man was voted through.

I was almost enthused about today. The UK landscape, particularly for women, is bleak with a state intent on increasing women’s dependency on men by cutting off as many alternatives as possible while throwing women into ever further poverty. I even nearly went to one of the local actions but I hesitated. I wasn’t in a hurry to repeat my past experiences but I did like the “evict a millionaire” theme and the links made with the unfair bedroom tax.

And so I actively sought out the photos of the action I nearly went on. And there it was, illustrated in full colour. Men in the headlights of the action to such an extent that you could be forgiven for thinking it was male-only. Have a look for yourself:

http://www.demotix.com/news/1953852/activist-group-uk-uncut-storms-birminghams-council-house#media-1954118

No one’s going to bully, harass, censor or storm this group because of its male dominance. So common is male-led mixed activism I bet no one, except me, even noticed. What price all this lip-service to “inclusivity” now?
In this world where “self-identity is king”, because no one has explicitly stated this is a male-only, or male-led action, male dominance goes unseen and unheard. Oh and I’m very willing to bet that women were behind the scenes making this action happen, as we usually are.

A radical feminist response to this leftist inevitability is to organise autonomously so that we can focus on what matters to women without taking care of men and their delicate feelings and ego. For that, we have been called fascists, bigots, and “transphobic” (sic). All in the name of the self-identity travesty which has hit left-leaning circles at a time when we need to be at our most radical. The rights of everyone except the rich are under attack. Our herstory has already told us that our feminist movements are de-radicalised when we involve those with a sense of entitlement in our fight against oppression.

I feel so sad that the lessons of the past have to be learned all over again – the slow, agonizing way. Women in the 1960s, at Greenham, and as part of other political movements, recognised the vital part separatist activism played in ensuring that women’s voices, women’s politics and women’s energy are heard. Without it, ways in which women’s rights are attacked are “disappeared” in pursuit of male-led interests.

I urge all the battle-weary feminists in the various leftist groupings to stop fighting to be heard within mixed activism. Instead, come to radfem2013 to be with other women to take political action, unfettered, unrestricted, and without acting as caretakers for men.

Sisters. 8 and 9 June. Join us.

http://radfem2013.moonfruit.com/

Or, if you can’t be with us, help us with our appeal to get women living in poverty, to the conference:

http://www.youcaring.com/other/get-radfems-living-in-poverty-to-radfem2013/52035

IDENTITY POLITICS: Paper, sisters, stone and radfem2013

I had an astounding, and actually quite shocking, experience last night. As one of the proud organisers of radfem2013, I started to advertise the fact that you can now register online and that the full, downloadable, programme is available. My starting point was local feminist facebook groups. Groups I have been a member of for a long time and who organise feminist events I have, or would, attend, if time allows, in real life.

I had been a member of a particular feminist group for many months. True, unlike other local groups, I had rarely, if ever, posted but I did keep an eye on it for events in case there was anything I wanted to go to. It is called (local geographical name) “feminists”. You would think, then, that this would be a suitable place to advertise a feminist conference – albeit a particular strand of feminism.

Within minutes, several group members descended on the post advertising the conference. Someone linked a blog post, a year old, where the writer likened 2012 radfem attendees to those who had spat in their 15-year old face. I posted my own blog post about the 2013 conference because I hoped it would demonstrate why radical feminist space is important to those fighting women’s oppression. A “transphobic” accusation was made against me. Deeply offended that I was being accused of causing physical harm to another human being simply because I want to critique gender, I posted part of our 2013 conference statement which makes our position on violence and verbal abuse clear:

COMMITMENT TO HUMAN RIGHTS

We support the human rights of all people to live free from violence or verbal abuse. We support the existence of laws to ensure those rights are protected. We support the right of all groups who are disadvantaged in society to autonomously organise. Although we support the rights and freedoms of all, this conference will be focused on the liberation of females.

I was then asked if “trans women” were excluded. If they had read the “about” page, as I had encouraged them to do, they would have seen what we believe and what ideologies we oppose and so the question was meaningless. If, instead of “queer” politics, there was a focus on radfem critiques of “compulsory heterosexuality”, then an accurate analogy would be to ask if heterosexuals are excluded, making that an impossible question in context. The critique is about political analysis, how is such a question, in any shape or form, answerable? The answer is not “Yes, anyone can come“, it‘s not a social club for all and sundry – it‘s a political belief about radical social change. “Heterosexuals” do not share one political perspective and, typically, unless they are radical feminists, tend to resist analysing heterosexuality as an oppressive institution, believing that, somehow, such an analysis is aimed at attacking their individual life. Heterosexual radical feminists understand the critique is a political discourse – not a personal attack on them. I was accused of “evasion” for saying the question makes no sense, in the context of a conference for women sharing a political belief. The analogy would continue with a resulting accusation of my being “heterophobic” if such a concept genuinely existed. To anyone with an ounce of logic in their being, this makes no sense on any level.

I explained that radical feminism is about structural oppression and that they were asking me questions from an individualistic framework and the two perspectives just don‘t fit together. The starting point is completely different. I explained that our opposition to particular types of politics is political, not personal; that we have a right to critique gender from our own lived experience, and political perspectives, without being accused of bigotry. I explained that I was “queer-critical” because genderism masks the power hierarchy between men and women. A woman asked me if I, therefore, “hated queers” and whether that meant they were barred from the conference.

They literally could not read my words nor see beyond the barrage of sterotypical labels they had in their head about radical feminists. They could not see beyond the list of insults they threw at me. They did not, or could not, engage with the points I made as a result. They could only see my points in relation to individuals: excluding individuals and labelling individuals.

Someone posted that they hoped no one from the group would even think about attending the conference (group_think: “don’t you dare see there may be another way of viewing this conference other than from a place of “bigotry”"). Someone else called for admin to attend to me. The admin posted that this is a “safe space” for “trans women and queers” and that, if I couldn’t accept that, I must leave. I had entirely focused on ideological differences in response to their criticisms and so I was aghast at such a post. I was the textual equivalent of speechless. One of the agitators called for the removal of my thread. And that was it. The post, and I, were gone from the group in a flash. The whole incident lasted less than half an hour.

My politics had been silenced and censored within a “feminist” space. My words deemed unsuitable for members to hear. By framing my political (one-sided) discussion to be about “identity politics”, they had used silencing techniques. Their logic was that, if a large collection of diverse individuals were being “attacked” (because our politics is our identity), then, of course, they must be afforded a “safe space”. The post-modernist politics they (almost certainly unthinkingly) express cannot be questioned because they are who they say they are and who they say they are must be protected above the politics of ideas and beliefs about the world. Their being, their identity, cannot be politically questioned because that renders the political space “unsafe” for them.

This polemic is dangerous. Really dangerous. It prevents women from talking about liberation. The organised left will be happy enough to go along with this because, as we’ve seen with numerous stories lately, and in the past, putting women’s oppression central to the fight against capitalism is the last thing on the minds of the often egotistic and ambitious male leaders of the left. And it really is the agenda of the right wing and male centred status quo – despite the confusing use of rhetoric which suggests something more alternative than malestream ideas.

That I was prevented from introducing and advertising a feminist conference within a feminist group should be the concern of all who champion the rights of alternative political debate. You don’t have to agree with radical feminist politics but, if you believe in revolution (that existing social systems are inherently oppressive and need to be dismantled), then you should be concerned about where identity politics is leading the political left.

Can it really only be radical feminists who understand this? It seems we can add one lone philosopher male to the list. (I don’t usually quote males as part of my radical feminist politics but quoting this male is useful because he, unusually, sees the bigger consequential picture of mass attempts to censor radical feminists. He understands it is to the detriment of alternative politics. I don’t agree with it all but you can read the full article here: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=6662 ).

He re-examines the terms of the debate about what the category “woman” means and concludes it is a social category. Such a debate never normally gets off the starting block, as with me, because cries of “transphobia” close it down but, hey, he‘s a man. He has not been subjected to the levels of personal attacks and hostility that radical feminists typically face. He uses post-modernist theory to argue that to say “psyche is destiny” is a “new essentialism” and he centres the problem, as does radical feminism, on individualism.

“I think the real culprit here may then be a profound – a hyper- — individualism in our society, a kind of psychical consumerism of identity-politics that makes it seem as though any claim to identity is self-validating and must be accepted, and a wearing of victimhood as a badge such that one’s victimhood is supposed to prevent any criticism of one’s psychologically-based claims to identity.….it is just plain wrong for any victim-group to use its victim-status as a tool with which to beat other victims of oppression.”

This male philosopher (and self-claimed “feminist”) understands what those infiltrating “feminist” spaces with post-modernist theory fail to. Attempting to censor women from naming, describing and analysing our life-long lived experience as women is dangerous to anyone who values freedom of speech/freedom of ideas, within alternative, radical circles. If those spaces are to be guarded by those who defend individualism and identity politics above all other freedoms – we will never achieve radical social change. It was Margaret Thatcher who said there is no such thing as society and it is no coincidence that an extreme right-winger’s ideas about individualism are aligned with the current wave of post-modernist take-over of left-leaning spaces.

Our right to hold a peaceful radical feminist conference for women, survivors of multiple forms of oppressions, and our right to define the political boundaries of that conference, is something which should be supported by those on the left. Collusion with a post-modern/queer ideology perpetuates a block to women’s liberation. Patriarchy in action.

Despite these attempts to silence and shame women from fighting for women’s liberation, radfems have, nonetheless, managed to tweet their way through the barrage of insults on the hash tag #radfem2013 towards articulating what radical feminism is (and isn’t).

One woman tweeted this:

“The programme is great. Can’t believe I started out saying I wouldn’t come – I would have missed so much! I’m quite embarrassed tho – I had unquestioningly swallowed quite a lot of s*** about radical feminism!”

Her change of heart came about because she managed to reach beneath the identity-laden anti-radical feminist rhetoric and find our politics. They made sense to her.

We want radical feminism to make sense to other women. We cannot allow a particular lobby, fuelled by hatred and misunderstandings about what radical feminism is, to stop women from exploring our political truths. We will not be silenced. We will not be censored. We will not go underground.

Click here to register:

http://radfem2013.moonfruit.com 8 & 9 June, London, UK

WHY I WILL BE AT RADFEM2013

I don’t want to sit on the internet any longer feeling so angry about what is being done to women, on a daily basis, that I can’t breathe. I don’t want to go another day being sexually objectified by strange men in cars or on streets without knowing I am part of a fight back movement. I don’t want to read about another woman who is forgotten after she has been murdered, prostituted, raped, beaten, sexually abused and harassed without knowing there is a growing movement of women who care and are doing something revolutionary in response.

I am angry. I am increasingly in touch with other women who are angry and who want to do something to end male violence and domination.

A radical feminist said to me recently: “I feel I am living my life on 2 levels. There’s the level at which I operate in order to survive patriarchy and there’s the level I am really operating at while viewing the world from a radical feminist lens. The two are at odds and they make me feel crazy, alone”

I will be going to radfem2013 so that I am not alone, so that I don’t feel silenced, so that the radical statements in my head have an outlet and so that they will connect with many other women because they feel them, have read it, and believe them too. Only from there, can we plan social change which will undermine patriarchy.

Radical feminism is a structural analysis. That means it’s not about me, or you, as individuals. It’s about analysing and understanding how patriarchal systems and structures work. It’s about recognising it’s not a coincidence that only a few rapists are charged, let alone convicted, that the systems which exist deliberately ensure male supremacy continues undisturbed at the expense of all women. The same is true for every aspect of women’s oppression. It’s a society which benefits all men at the expense of all women and that can only be understood at a structural level – it is the way our society is set-up and sustained. No other ideology analyses women’s oppression so clearly and, therefore, no other ideology can find real and lasting solutions. I am going to radfem2013 to talk to other radical feminists about those solutions. I am going to radfem2013 to take them forward.

I am going to radfem2013 to be sustained and nourished in sisterhood with other women, new and old friends, who want to join me, and other women, in the fight for freedom. The delicious joy of meeting many many women who think as I do and connecting with them is a significant moment of time in my life, as it was last year at radfem12.

I am going to radfem2013 because it’s a unique opportunity to be in a women-only space, where the politics and the rarity of sister space will be truly understood.

Are you a radical feminist? Come and meet me and hundreds of other women at radfem2013.

Get more details here:

http://radfem2013.moonfruit.com

ANOTHER SUNDAY MORNING UNDER PATRIARCHY

Another Sunday morning as I lie in bed with some kind of fluey virus while feeling the tentacles of patriarchy spraying all over my psyche. Feverish and tense, my suffering increases as I skim-read the headlines. A known wife-beater championed as a hero, fighting the odds for his life, a story about a woman who was objectified in photos for male consumption when very young and inexperienced, and, most heart-wrenching of all, a survivor who killed herself days after giving evidence during a court hearing about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

I cannot hear these stories told from a patriarchal, or even liberal feminist, viewpoint. That makes me incandescent with RAGE. The casual dropping of each story as if it has no significance for all women. As if they are rare, isolated stories about individual women, at worst. At best, used as illustrations that the state, or society, should adjust how it does something. A little bit. And then everything will be ok.

We know that is not true. We have tried reforms through policies, legislation, media campaigns and nothing changes for women. If anything, women’s oppression is increasing despite various attempts at reformist measures over the past few decades.

Nothing except a radical feminist analysis makes sense of stories like the glorification of a footballer known to beat women or the young woman forced to pose in images suggesting sexual availability. Systems and cultural norms are designed to humiliate and subjugate women and view their resulting suffering  as insignificant and inferior compared to the suffering of men.

Most of all, it has taken a woman’s death to start a debate within the malestream about the suffering of female survivors of sexual violence and what happens to us within patriarchal legal processes. The suffering bites deep. It never leaves us. Society forces us to internalise it and believe we are to be blamed if we speak of male violence. If Frances Andrade had not died, it is unlikely that the fact she did not want to give evidence, but felt morally obliged to, would have been widely known. The defence clutched at the usual straws of attention seeking, fantasist when cross-examining her. These are accusations thrown at women world-wide when we speak out. They are designed to intimidate us and to portray us as an insane collection of individuals so that the conspiracy of silence about men’s systematic rape and abuse of women continues. It doesn’t matter what our circumstances are this is the typical accusation when we speak out – whether we go through legal channels or not. Speaking out about sexual violence, under patriarchy, is, somehow, shifted to being as “evil” as rape itself and as deserving of punishment. I was skim-reading a link about new proposals in response to rape in India. One comment read “I’ll agree to punishment by death, when women who lie are also put to death” Again and again, in the comments, men referred to “women who lie”. Patriarchy re-creates survivors as liars, as in the case of Frances Andrade, and we feel hopeless and helpless and our punishment and stigmatisation for not keeping silent goes on until, as individuals, we collapse under the weight of it.

I worry that, in this world of increasing “gender equality” leading to statements such as “women are violent too” (as well as being persistent liars and fantasists of course – I’ve never heard it in reverse – that men lie about being raped. Convenient that) means that explicitly feminist women-only services, set up by “second wave” (sic) movement feminists, are under threat.

I was lucky. When i began to speak out, I was not just listened to and believed, in the kind of typical counselling way found nowadays with pseudo “objectivity”, I spoke out within the context of radical feminism. I spoke to women who told me what happens to women who speak out, who told me it was not my responsibility to bring the man who raped me to justice. One of the times I was raped, I ran, distraught, in the streets and was found by a random woman who wouldn’t  let me go until I told her why I was hysterical. Eventually, I did. “Go to the police” she said.

She saw me in the streets months later “Did you ever go to the police?” she asked. I told her “no” and felt her judgement weighing on me, how it was my fault that he’d rape other women from that moment onwards. Years later, I received validation from many, many radical feminists who had made the same choices. There is no real justice for survivors under patriarchy. Instead, there is usually punishment for ending our silence. When we know that, we no longer feel alone and to blame. We see our personal experience within the context of male domination.

An anonymous woman offered to kill one of the men who raped me. I was tempted. I fantasised about it. The only part of my story involving fantasy. I imagined what intense pleasure I’d feel at knowing that a life that had caused me so much pain and hurt had been taken in return. Only I knew such pleasure would be short-lived because, by now, I had come to understand that life for all females is fraught with potential danger and we’re preyed on by predators in a never-ending war.

Frances Andrade could have been any of us, at any time. It is not about whether we are “weak” or “strong”. It is about a system of oppression where, no matter what we do or don’t, or say or don’t, we are punished for it.

Male supremacy creates conditions for all females which are the conditions of war and torture. Therein lies the unbearable truth which we are forced to deal with in all kinds of convoluted, distorted ways in order to live day by day. Otherwise, many more of us would take the same route as Frances did.

Radical feminism is unmodified.  It tells our truths. My strength as a survivor does not come from knowing I have told my stories and I am believed. My strength comes from knowing my experiences are common, that they are a result of my being a member of a class which is systematically beaten down and silenced. In the days when women-only support was undiluted feminism, women were helped to make our own choices with how we navigated systems which worked against us. Not going to the police was logical, acceptable. If Frances Andrade had received feminist support, instead of feeling pressured by patriarchy to put others before her own needs within an unsafe system, maybe she would still be here.

I know that is true for me. The day I discovered (radical) feminism and learned what the problem was and why I was blamed for it, was the day I joined the struggle for women’s liberation and found my own voice. Skim-reading patriarchal horrors takes me back to a place I don’t want to be. In an internet world of “sound-bites” it’s easy to throw a link to those horrors and think we are done. I want a radical feminist analysis of all that we see around us.  i want to read about women’s fight- back. One after another. It happens. With each other’s support, anything is possible.

Why I say NO to mixed “feminist” action

I am reading growing criticisms of one billion rise.

There is nothing new in those criticisms which haven’t already been said, in various forms, about “slutwalk,” about UK feminista, etc. In recent months/years, new activities, with sight feminist reformist goals, have sprung up. All these activities have one common theme – men must not, at any cost, feel excluded from what women do to fight against our oppression. It goes without saying that these new initiatives have the potential to be popular and widespread, given they are no threat to the status quo.

Some in radical feminist circles say it’s good that young women become awakened to feminist action, no matter how liberal, how mixed, how gentle, that activism is.

I disagree. I say we should be working together to create a strong radical feminist women-only movement with an emphasis on activism and not allow ourselves to be diluted into working in, and with, these liberal off-shoots of feminism. If women are to be inspired into feminist activism, let them be inspired into joining the fight for our liberation, not some bland watered down version where we all relax and have a cup of tea with our enemy.

Discussions on a facebook friend’s wall and a blog post by Carolyn Gage http://carolyngage.weebly.com/2/post/2013/02/movement-vs-dance-moves.html about one billion rise turn to the familiar argument of “We aren’t naming the agent here”. My blog post is about WHY the phenomenon of not naming male violence occurs. If an (alleged) feminist action is mixed, it is immediately saying something political about its priorities. It is saying “it is more important to us that men feel welcomed and supported here than it is that we prioritize fighting women’s oppression”

I understand why this is. I understand that centuries of patriarchy has conditioned women to be polite to men, to put men’s needs first, to not go out of our way to reject men for fear of the worst kinds of backlashes, and that the deeply embedded institution of compulsory heterosexuality means women too often feel obliged to affirm, again and again, how much they love the men in their lives.

None of this takes away the fact that (radical) feminism is about the liberation of women. “Gender neutrality” or “gender equality” are two drab meaningless phrases trotted out to fool women that feminism is about anything other than their fight for freedom. The shift means feminism is framed to be about men, or trans/queer people, or about other oppressions, such as class. Women, yet again, even in their own movement, are sidelined; their actions futile as their agenda gets more and more reformist in order to accommodate men and their needs and wishes.

When socialists organise uprisings do they send letters to the rich and powerful inviting them to join in?

No they don’t.

Historically, did disabled people and black people invite non-disabled people and white people to join their self-organised activist movements?

No, they did not.

And the reason for this is they know, and knew, that the very people they would be inviting were part of the problem and that they had to articulate what that problem is, and organise against it, in order to be free of it. The struggle is diluted if those who take part are, however unwittingly, members of the oppressor group and yet, undeterred by that, still occupy the spaces of protest. It is not a coincidence that this is a phenomenon dogging contemporary feminism. Many women live intimately with the enemy – separating herself, defining her rights and expressions of freedom are political acts. Creating women-only spaces, and defending them, is a political act.

And so, no I won’t be dancing with one billion rise, although I too love to dance. I will not be colluding with the de-radicalisation of feminism by taking part in any feminist action involving men. We have to defend women-only spaces and activism, at all costs, it’s our path to freedom.

I am reminded of a photo doing the rounds on facebook recently. It was of a placard which originally read: “End violence against women” and “women” was crossed out and replaced by “everyone” with the “o” written in the form of the trans symbol. When we aren’t upfront and clear that the fight is against male violence and male supremacy, the feminist movement de-radicalises. There is one group who can always be relied on to name male violence and male supremacy – and that is radical feminists. Again, it is no coincidence that our movement is seen as “fringe” and irrelevant and not malestream – we attack the status quo through the very act of naming the class of men as the problem.

I never thought the time would come when I wished “feminism” wasn’t so popular. It’s become so popular that the meaning of the word is lost. I never thought I’d long for the days when feminism was a word which people resisted because it meant “hairy, man-hating lesbians”. In that stereotype lies a much closer truth about what feminism is, and should be, than today’s shiny, glossy performances where all are welcome.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

I am reminded by the writings of others that I “came out” 25 years ago. I came out to a cacophony of raised voices, direct actions, angry spray-painted walls. Our rights were under threat by a right wing ideology enshrined in legislation. In the UK “clause 28″ was a direct attack on the lives of lesbians. There was enough of a lesbian feminist movement to know that, as lesbians, we had to defend our own rights, that no one else would do it for us and that, if we joined forces with gay men, we would be subsumed by a male agenda.

We did join with them sometimes. We joined the big marches against clause 28 along with hets and gay men. But, more importantly, we carried out our own direct actions and we saw ourselves as separate and apart in our fight for liberation. As radical lesbian feminists, we had no interest in the gay male agenda of being “accepted” within mainstream patriarchy. We saw ourselves as subversives and we wanted to act like that’s what we were.

I was reminded by a tweet of Julie Bindel’s that we occupied the ideal home exhibition. I don’t recall her being there but there were a lot of women taking part in the action that day. It was mother’s day and the action mocked the idea that lesbians were “pretend mothers” (as stated by the Thatcherite propaganda). When we occupied the house and shut the doors, I remember one of the male security guards asking, in puzzlement, “How can lesbians be mothers?” and we laughed. I remember shouting from the top “There’s a lesbian in every woman” and the other lesbians laughed. I don’t even recall going with anyone I knew. A solitary figure casually joining in. There was a lesbian feminist existence to join. She was bold, transgressive, she wanted to scrap all the patriarchal rules and start again.

I look back over the next 25 years as if they are ruins of a forgotten time. Individualistic solutions took a hold in lesbian feminist communities as the fight against patriarchy started losing momentum. If you are fighting what is invisible, acceptable, it is much harder than if you’re fighting an obvious wrong, an obvious injustice. Counselling, alternative therapies and happy coupledoms and tight friendship networks began to be all-pervasive as fewer women were increasingly less overtly political.

There were pockets of resistance. Some of us held out in tiny parts of the UK. We protested when they threatened to cancel our lesbian poetry reading, to be held on council premises. We continued to identify as lesbian feminists and we built communities but, gradually, the fire in our bellies died. It became more and more difficult to fight apathy. The malestream had accepted some feminist reforms. Some of the activists got well-paid jobs and were assimilated. And time rolled by. In the midst of the surge towards individualistic solutions came a new theory. I understood why it appealed to so many lesbians. It gave them permission to merely indulge in oppressive gender roles, instead of fighting them. Don’t like how women are oppressed? Pretend that “gender” is “fluid” and that by dressing up as a man or a woman you are, somehow, doing something revolutionary. And so dragkings and “femmes” and “butch femmes” and goddess knows what were born. They are now enshrined in an apolitical, barely visible, tiny lesbian corner of the universe somewhere. Meanwhile, gay men are busy getting richer and becoming the acceptable gay face of the LGBT world. We insisted on the “l” being at the front; we, the lesbian feminists, who knew we had to fight to be heard; that we are women, as well as lesbians, and that women are hated under patriarchy.

Our movement was co-opted by queers, by “feminist” (sic) men, even by MREs (male rights extremists) – all of whom demand “gender equality” and, in their different ways, deny, trivialize and actively suppress the liberation of women. It’s happened gradually, slowly, over that 25 years so that, now, we have to fight for women-only “reclaim the night” marches, for women-only services, for radical feminists to meet and critique gender openly and without fear of personal recriminations. We are slowly seeing feminist victories of that era being eroded as funding for refuges and rape crisis centres water down political critiques and the funding itself disappears; lesbians are seen as less vocal versions of gay men with the same needs and aspirations. To the (mostly gay men of course) people writing how gay men (and lesbians) are much more comfortable with their sexuality now, 25 years on, understand how our feminist herstory is important. This is only so because of fragile reformist acts protecting rights. Conservatives have made very clear how much they want to repeal those rights. They could be gone in seconds and the attacks on lesbians (and gay men) resurface. It’s what is happening to women’s rights already and, as lesbian feminists, we care about the reproductive and abortion rights of our sisters (and ourselves). We see retrogressive attacks on all women, as a class, increasing, while gay men fight for the right to marry and fit into patriarchal norms.

All is not lost, however, because there is a growing movement of radical feminists who put fighting women’s oppression first, once more. Central to that movement is the right to openly and autonomously organise as women. Our oppressors will not liberate us. We have to pick up the sword of freedom from our sisters past and fight on until we achieve true liberation. Revolution, not reform, will win our freedom.

 

Romantic Love: A Patriarchal Ploy

February 14. It’s that time of year again. I remember it from days gone by. Wondering if I had far-off, unknown admirers who’d suddenly find bravery within and send me a card. Feeling the wistful disappointment when looking at an empty mat after the post had been. As a  child, I made my mum a card and gave it to her and she said: “Someone loves me”.  During some years, there were cute cards from my cats (yes it was my mum in return). For many years, there was a build up of suspense that, maybe, this year would be the year when a boy would notice I exist. Romantically. I was, after all, continuously sexually objectified in the street and that’s almost the same thing, isn’t it? It was easy-peasy after I started dating women. I got valentines cards without fail and flowers and presents at any time because most women have romance in their bones. Their very conditioning.

Ok stop right there. Let’s look at this. If there’s something women are encouraged to easily do but men aren’t then we can almost guarantee it’s something which works against women, not for them.

In many cultures, including where I live in the UK, “romantic love” is a cornerstone of compulsory heterosexuality. From as soon as we can understand words, we’re given messages about marriage, motherhood and romance. Jokes are made about the 3 year old boy down the road marrying us one day. We’re asked repeatedly who we want to marry when we grow up. It’s instilled in us, from birth, that our primary aim in life should be finding a male “soul-mate” who we can look after and live happily ever after with. If we don’t get that reinforcement often enough at home, then  children’s fairy books make damned sure there’s back-up when required. Gender socialization starts from birth and we are read, as soon as possible, books which tell us about our place in the world as servers of men.

On the surface, perhaps, it all might seem innocent enough, if you’re prepared to accept this kind of propaganda at face-value. It’s only when we look deeper, from a radical feminist lens, we see the sinister implications of how “romantic love” works.

Centuries ago, women were controlled through economics; forced to be financially dependent on the patriarch. The only way they could survive was to be sold to the next patriarch (middle/upper class women) or to find a patriarch who had a chance of earning an income (poor/working class women). This form of control continues to exist but now needs strong back-up given that (some) women can earn a living wage based on their own training, education and skills.

That back-up is romantic myths. The idea that there is a man out there for all of us, who will love us, protect us, and nurture us. Forever. We have feedback that this must be true through the magazines we read, the books we buy and the films we see. Without fail, happy, successful heterosexual partnerships are mirrored back to us. On the rare occasions this is not the case, it is made clear these are exceptions in life, not the norm.

Who can blame women, then, when we naively seek “romantic love” which we think of as mutually nurturing, caring, emotionally equal relationships? Online dating sites are full of promise for the female romantic. Women seek connections and men seek casual fucks with sexually objectified women who, they believe, will be just like the tortured women in the porn they consume.

Our deeply conditioned belief in “romantic love” keeps us in abusive relationships. We look for deeper meanings, we say that “he loves me really” when he fails to live up to any kind of basic human standard, or “I can change him”. A belief in “romantic love” overrides experiences of beatings, rapes and psychological torture. We will find it, no matter what. We must. All the messages we have received from birth tells us it is there – what is wrong with us that we can’t find it? We are taught we are incomplete human beings without the love of a man. We must suffer in the hope that one day we might be given it. For real.

It is a Stockholm technique to keep females, as a class, trapped inside compulsory heterosexuality. Compulsory heterosexuality is designed to benefit men, as a class, at the expense of women, as a class. Imprisoning women or putting us in cages, will not work because we need to be free to carry out errands. They invented “romantic love”, instead, as a psychological cage with the aim of keeping us in our places until death.

As poverty bites hard in 2013, and as the welfare state shrinks, more and more women will be forced back into the home and into economic and financial dependency on men. Logic wouldn’t keep a slave as an unpaid drudge, meeting the financial, emotional, sexual and practical demands of men within the confines of compulsory heterosexuality. “Romantic love”, however, will fare so much better than a ball and chain.

THE SILENCING OF RADICAL FEMINISTS HAS TO STOP

I rushed to write a response when I found out Julie Burchill’s article, alongside many posts by radical feminists, including mine, were removed by CiF (commmentsisfree). It remains unpublished by CiF. I knew that would be the case. Despite that, I felt it was important to express my concern about how the politics of radical feminism is silenced under a broad “transphobia” umbrella. In my posts following that article, I focused only on this problem and that of radical feminists receiving online abuse for our beliefs.

 

I hesitated about whether to make it a blog post myself. It was rushed, not the strongest piece I had ever written etc. And, then, today, I heard that Gallus Mag, who writes gendertrender, has been suspended from her account. She provides news-stories which are difficult to access anywhere else. That was the final straw. I had to post this (imperfect though it may be) so that I can add my concerns about my sisters being silenced when we critique gender.

Radical feminism is a re-emerging political movement which goes to the root of women’s oppression. It’s the only ideology which clearly names male domination and violence as the cause of women’s subordination. It asserts that gender is the vehicle for that oppression and that concepts of “femininity” and “masculinity” are socially constructed and inherently oppressive towards women.

Given that analysis, it follows that radical feminism is in political opposition to queer/post-modernist/trans politics. Radical feminism is a politics which women have a right to understand accurately but is frequently misrepresented.

One of the misunderstandings which exist is that the analysis is inherently “transphobic” leading to a bizarre situation where women are unable to articulate what we believe causes our own oppression due to abuse, fear and intimidation from a very vocal trans/queer lobby. There is a competing set of rights and women’s rights are continuously trumped.

An article by Julie Burchill has just been withdrawn by the Observer (and, therefore, from CiF) thus obliterating many radical feminist comments on CiF, mine among them. I wrote truths as I see them. There were no personal attacks in my posts and nor would I do so. My concerns are political, not personal. I have a right to express my politics. I am very concerned that my politics are being silenced under the broad umbrella of “hate speech” when I am, in fact, analysing the harm gender does to women. In particular, the compulsory performance of “femininity” which all girls and women are subjected to.

I have seen women online called “transphobic” for saying abortion and reproductive rights are key to the fight for women’s liberation. Our ability to reproduce is the fundamental cause of our oppression, our ability to give birth is what patriarchy is founded on. That is not saying that radical feminism is about essentialism. It is saying that our oppression is built on our biology and has mushroomed, from there, over centuries. We cannot allow ourselves to be silenced on this issue. We have to be able to be critical of queer/post-modernist theories. Their obfuscations and assertions that “gender isn’t a binary” denies the structural and institutional oppressions which are the cornerstones of patriarchy. Structural power cannot be dismantled simply by changing our genders.

The decision to remove Julie Burchill’s article means that the comments many of us made, where we explained that being subjected to vicious and disproportionate abuse online, simply for critiquing gender, is a daily experience of radical feminists, have also been removed. Yet again, there is an unseen picture here, where the silencing, and censoring, of radical feminists, articulating our politics, has been wiped out alongside that article.

I am not saying that anyone has to agree with us. I am saying that it is crucial there is a way in which we are not silenced by someone else’s individual rights being more important than our articulation of how women are oppressed. Our view of this patriarchal world is important to many women and is a passport to freedom. Why would anyone deny us that?