This graphic by somewhat_brave on Reddit pretty much nails it. (Click here to see a larger version.) When #GamerGaters talk about “ethics” in journalism, this is pretty much code for “journalists shouldn’t be allowed to say anything critical of us!”
And in case you missed the all-Cat version of the manifesto, here it is again:
It is just another form of harassment in your example, wwth, that we are expected to tolerate because they “mean well”. No they don’t. They are doing the dominance dance and we have every right to tell them to knock it off.
Leum, we already had this discussion a few weeks ago on this blog. I am not interested in having it again, thanks.
The term is also used to silence any woman who questions anything a trans person says or does, though. It’s used by misogynists to silence women, even though those misogynists probably hate trans people too. Yes, there are some feminists whose feminism is trans-exclusionary, and for whom that’s a major part of it. But disagreeing with elements of queer or trans theory, or even mentioning that there are criminals in the trans community – I’m talking abuse here – is not being transphobic or trans-exclusionary. Yet that’s how it’s painted too often, and I’m seriously unimpressed with what has turned into silencing women’s voices right here on a feminist blog.
Sorry, I wasn’t here when the discussion over TERFs happened. I apologize for upsetting my fellow commenters.
The whole thing’s happened twice, in a way – back about 2012 and again with the blow-up sparked by Ally’s behaviour here. That’s the one from a few weeks back.
@ WWTH – that article gave me All. The. Rage.
Also, are we doing the TERF discussion again?
::gets favourite blankie and hides under bed::
A TERF is a specific label that doesn’t describe all radical feminists. I’m uncomfortable with you telling long time regulars they can’t use their own preferred labels and insinuating they’re transphobic.
From a website where most people get Schrodinger’s rapist, I’m actually appalled at what I am reading here. I rarely if ever comment here, but I’m startled by the sudden lack of cis-privilige on display. A trans person being worried about people who use a phrase that is often very dog whistle like is hardly unreasonable, and it is the case that because of cis people like Cathy Brennan causing extreme hardship for trans people under the explicit name of radical feminism trans* people have every right to be worried when the phrase occurs. If I identify as a man and a woman is worried or feels unsafe because of it, that’s on the patriarchy, not me and not the woman. Ditto here.
Also, the idea that trans people use TERF as a silencing technique is every bit as absurd and insulting as the idea that women use sexist for the same reason, or PoC’s use racism for the same. It’s embarassing to see this stated in what is generally an enlightened community.
The original comment was a bit bizarre.
If radical feminist meant the same as trans exclusionary radical feminist, you wouldn’t need the trans exclusionary part to differentiate them.
@ sciencefair
So what you’re saying is that people who are part of a political movement, and have been for a long time, should stop identifying themselves as such because you’ve met people who’re part of that movement in the past who made you uncomfortable? So we should, what, pretend to be affiliated with a different branch of feminism? Leave the comments section of this blog entirely in order to make you more comfortable? Allow some random dude to give a history of feminism that’s factually incorrect, and not chime in with corrections even if some of us were there and actually remember what happened?
No. No, we are not going to do that. I’m also not going to stop using the term Randroid just because you didn’t understand what I was saying, but I am going to point out how hypocritical it is to suggest that people should stop affiliating themselves with a movement you have a bad impression of while at the same time demanding that they not criticize a movement that you used to be affiliated with.
I mean, it’s great that you apologized and apology accepted and all, but what the hell, dude?
Oh, nice. Speaking as a redhead who wears green and purple a lot, because they both flatter my coloring immensely (though not together, if I can help it, because that much bright color in combination can be hard on the eyes), I am not fucking amused.
The suffragette usage of the color scheme, however, makes me very happy. I doubt these ultramaroons thought of THAT when they were dictating what their token feeeeemale antifeminist “Vivian James” was to look like, though. Which is another good ha-ha at their expense.
What’s even funnier is that most of the so-called man-haters of the day were actually not. Dworkin seems a particularly bad example to use, since she’d been in relationships with abusive men, and her last partner was John Stoltenberg. It’s kind of hard to make the case for her being a man-hater when she was living with a man right up to the time of her death. If she really were one, would she have any use for males of any description? I’m guessing not!
On the Jezebel thing, ugh. Why can’t we just agree that although there are many benefits associated with breast feeding some people just can’t do it, or don’t want to, and shaming them for that does nothing to make babies healthier, which is what the breastfeeding debate is supposedly about?
@ cassandrakitty – but the Mommy Wars (TM) aren’t about healthy babies. It’s about shaming other moms until becoming the alpha-est alpha mommy of all time!!!
I dropped out, though, and am now an omega splergh. My smalls are currently eating non-organic potato chips straight out of the bag while watching terrible, non-politically correct cartoons that are completely devoid of moral messages or basic math skills.
@ grumpyoldnurse
On the plus side, I did that as a child too and I’ve lived long enough to become an evil relic made of straw, so the smalls will probably be fine.
Also, I think I’d have been pretty annoyed as a child if my cartoons had started trying to teach me math. I grew up on shit like Bagpass and The Magic Roundabout, which didn’t teach much of anything other than that many of the adults around us were probably tripping balls.
Bagpuss, rather. Not sure what Bagpass might be about, if it existed.
Not sure what either might be about, cassandrakitty, but I must learn more!
::revs up youtube machine::
Seriously, though, you’re made of straw? That is so cool! I’m made of tin, which is also cool, except for when it rains. My joints seize up something terrible!
I’m still trying to figure out what particular variety of straw-stuffed relics radfems (Don’t say the word! It’s like Candyman and will summon them!) over 40 are supposed to be. Very old stuffed animals/dolls from the days of yore when synthetic fillers didn’t exist yet? Ancient cushion from misandric culture that has the power to give piles to any unwary man who sits on it?
OMG! Tripping balls, indeed! Makes Bugs Bunny and Roger Ramjet look almost plausible!
Ooh, did you find The Magic Roundabout? That show was so weird, but in a good way. My bestie had a duvet cover and pillow set with Dougal on it when we were in high school.
What type of straw relic? Something like this, perhaps?http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/24/10/b7/2410b7f2da5892a3681e6fa57848481b.jpg
It’s on YouTube! I’d never seen it before, but it looks compelling.
I think the breastfeeding debate, like attachment parenting in general, and the thing about organic foods, is just a repackaging of the older meme that women should exist for their husbands. It’s no longer acceptable to tell women that they must center their husbands in their lives, but it has become acceptable to tell women that their children must come first in all things, and women are required to put their own needs behind those of the kids. It’s just more of the same: keeping women tied down and busy with domestic and care-giving work, and shaming them for not doing a good enough job (because it is not possible to do a good enough job) so that they will have insufficient self-confidence to come out of the kitchen. Only the beneficiary of the mandatory care-giving has changed. Women are still hammered with the message that their own needs are not important and have to be placed behind the needs of literally everyone else.
Can I be an omega splergh too? I’m not a mummy but I am a slave to two Furrinati.
I dibs being the Lion! He had the best hair.
Asbestos fibre, maybe? Fireproof and kinda prickly?
PS: Dibs on Dorothy! I have the same coloring!
…Being short means that I’m going to end up being Toto, doesn’t it? But I wanna be a witch!