In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Open Thread with Unsure Pine Marten

This pine marten, not too sure about the snow at the British Wildlife Centre, features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

The small dark furry head of a pine marten pokes through a hole in a wooden den box at a wildlife centre. Its claws are resting under its chin on the edge of the hole.
Pine Marten – not sure about the snow | uploaded to Flick by Chris Parker (CC BY-ND 2.0)

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?


* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.


146 thoughts on Open Thread with Unsure Pine Marten

  1. So for the last few days I’ve been scratching my head over the Cardinal who is blaming radical feminists for feminising the Church and causing all those problems it’s been having with sexually predatory priests (and men not wanting to come to mass because too many women are around the place even though none of them are in positions of authority).

    o_O

    1. I particularly loved that he blamed little girls being too good at alter serving for driving boys away from the church. Competence is a threat. Btw he’s also the guy the pope demoted for repeatedly criticizing his leadership.

      1. Yeah well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, by which I mean don’t get me started on this “progressive” pope and his humility theatre. The wary respect of the Vatican insiders is not enough for him on a daily basis, it seems: he needs his diurnal dose of street adoration as well by commuting to and from his little flat, complete with all the extra security costs that entails, and as the most recent news shows he’s still all about shaming teh gayz.

        1. Yea I think the current pope is a good step forward. And considering the influence the Catholic church has on world politics, all positive steps should be encouraged. I’m not fond of anyone that finds my partner and I a threat to families.

        2. He is a reactionary in sheep’s clothing and let there be no mistake about it, but compared to Ratzinger? Yeah, he’s a step forward.

          1. I know what you mean, but one step up from Ratzinger is an extremely low bar to hurdle. He gets way too many pats on the back for making a few crowd-pleasing observations about social inequities without ever pointing the finger at the real problems.

    1. Lol, I forgot to finish this comment apparently.

      I was just saying that it turns out the feminist space I used to be a part of has been so emboldened by its recent ejection of trans women that now the word TERF is banned there and people are saying that trans women are only oppressed by men. Interesting how transparent things have become.

      1. I found myself writing something very me-me-me in response to your comment, Aaliyah – and then I realised that was insensitive. I’m sad that you have lost a space that once upon a time you found (from memory?) was a positive place for you. I just want to acknowledge that before I take a tangent.

        That said, onto how it very indirectly affects me: I find (ahem) interesting the argument from various TERFs that the word/acronym TERF itself is inherently a slur (as I learnt recently via some accusations hurled at me on Twitter, which allowed me to employ the Block User button with extreme prejudice).

        As the person who is credited with coining the term (although it’s really a bit more complicated than that), it really has made me think about how any word can be used as a slur if the person using it wants to denigrate a particular demographic. I can use “supermodel” or “rockstar” or “feminist” or “CEO” or “aristocrat” as a slur if I want to harness those words to a vilifying rhetorical horse, but that doesn’t mean that any of those words are necessarily accepted by the world at large as a slur – they are simply descriptive terms for members of particular groups. There really are only a few words which most of the world has reached a consensus whereby they are considered globally (although still not universally) negative – n****r, Nazi, KuKluxKlan-er, tyrant etc. Slurring only comes into it when [insert word here] is used to denigrate, vilify or otherwise Other a group to which oneself does not belong – even Nazi can be used purely descriptively, as a matter of historical fact, without necessarily being a slur.

        Intent might not be magic, but there are some very blurry lines surrounding words without context. Thus it behooves us all to be extra careful how we use them.

        1. Yeah, when TERFs insist on TERF being a slur all they are really trying to do is silence trans women, and what you said above is only further proof. Literally in that space I saw them say to someone else saying “I have a trans woman friend who was harmed by transmisogyny” by replying with “Ok but don’t you know that TERF is a word used by abusive rapist trans women who have male entitlement?”

        2. Aaliyah, I hope you will consider letting me “name the problem,” as the TERFs themselves are so fond of saying, and identify the place where this went on. Because I think people should know that that place — which has a good reputation among feminist websites, so far as I know — condones this sort of self-righteous, shameful bullying; all the “I’m not transphobic, but” stuff that went on over there (“TERF is a slur”; “trans women reify gender stereotypes”; “trans women are selfish”; “trans women are male”; “biological sex is immutable”) and caused you to leave, and apparently has gotten no better.

          It particularly bothers me that among the people who post this kind of thing is at least one person who used to be a regular commenter here, and pretended here to be at least generally trans-friendly (towards both of us), apparently because she knew that if she expressed her real views here she’d receive more pushback than she was willing to deal with. But as soon as she found others who apparently share similar views — and enough of them to squelch opposition, since apparently nobody has the courage there to stand up to this group — she hesitated no more. It’s all rather ironic, given how everyone here bent over backwards to be nice to her about her extreme eccentricities. Bah.

        3. Also, I see that she is now a moderator over there, which sure as hell doesn’t speak well for the place.

        4. Dominant groups hate it when subordinated groups take control of language. TERFs objecting to the term TERF are exactly the same as men objecting to women using “creep” and “creeper” to identify sleazy men violating their boundaries. It doesn’t matter what the words are that we use–it’s the fact that we are seizing control of language and defining it on our own terms that is threatening.

          A TERF is a TERF is a TERF. Keep on calling them like you see them, Aaliyah.

        5. And she even has the nerve to cite “Gender Minefield” as what she views as a “good” trans woman’s blog, i.e., the blog of one of the few trans women who are TERF apologists (usually, in my experience, because they find it validating to get pats on the head from TERFS), and insist that trans women are “male.”

          That said, I was just looking at the thread in question, and there are, in fact, people standing up against trans misogyny and pointing out that TERF is not a slur. So it doesn’t seem to be accurate to say that the term has been banned there.

        6. That said, I was just looking at the thread in question, and there are, in fact, people standing up against trans misogyny and pointing out that TERF is not a slur. So it doesn’t seem to be accurate to say that the term has been banned there.

          Yeah, I noticed that too after I read the thread again. I just said “banned” because it was a moderator who made that rule, although I admit the word choice resulted from me being pissed off at the time. It may not be an official rule but they sure as hell are trying to make it into one. I say this having read other threads on We Hunted The Mammoth/Man Boobz in which the term was discussed.

        7. Ok, I guess there’s nothing wrong about naming the place: Man Boobz/We Hunted The Mammoth.

          I guess I’d never thought of it as a feminist site. More of an anti-MRA site, and the comment threads I’ve looked at seemed to revolve around heated arguments between MRAish commenters and what I assume are regulars (maybe some of the MRAs are regulars, too?)

          But I don’t spend a lot of time there, either.

        8. Damn, am I the only one who thought this was about Shakesville?

          Hearing transphobia going unchecked at otherwise reputable sites is disappointing. We Hunted the Mammoth has always seemed like a feminist space that exists explicitly to lampoon claims about women’s equality magically destroying men. These are the same folks who launched “Confused Cats Against Feminism”, in response to “Women Against Feminism”.

      2. Donna (if I got this to thread right!), if you’re talking about who j think you’re talking about, “extreme eccentricity” is a very diplomatic way for you to put it. Husbands from the past = totally possible, trans people = biological sex is immutable!

        Gah. That was ghastly and I’m more than happy to name and shame.

      3. Also, the way that TERF became accepted as a slur by many regulars at WHTM has a strange history behind it. It started when I was in the middle of arguing with them, just before I decided to leave for good. I said that some of the things they were saying sounded like TERF talking points. And then things blew up there because some people thought that I was accusing everyone of being TERFs, even though I only said that some specific arguments were TERFy. After I left, they talked about how I was an example of someone using TERF to silence “radical feminist discussions”, conveniently ignoring/forgetting the fact that I openly talked about the importance of radical feminist theory while I was there. What they really meant was that they didn’t want TERFs to be silenced because they’re a “minority lesbian group” with no power at all in society (they seem to have forgotten that I’m a lesbian as well).

        But now because of all of the respect they have gained in that community, they have managed to effectively erase that history merely by pointing out the people who conflate TERF ideology with all of radical feminism as the reason they think it’s a slur. I’ve got to give them credit for being so good at making that blog seem respectable. And of course the man who runs that site hasn’t done shit to address the TERFiness going on there.

        1. And they still seem to be misrepresenting and caricaturing your position now that you’re gone — I don’t have much doubt that they have you in mind when they refer to the “former member” who supposedly believed that any cis lesbian who won’t have sex with a trans woman who has a penis is a TERF.

          Somehow I doubt that’s an accurate representation of your thinking.

        2. Yep. A few months ago they were explicitly referring to me. They were talking about how they had to stop people like me from ever engaging in “Ally behavior” (“Ally” referring to my nickname) again. They also still sometimes talk about me as some master manipulator who gained power because people sympathized with my situation with my dad.

        3. Right; I’ve always had trouble remembering which one is you and which one is Machiavelli.

          But you know how crafty trans women are, trying to get everyone to feel sorry for us.

        4. Speaking of the deceptive trans woman archetype, in that thread one user talks about how the fear of trans women being male rapists pretending to be women in women’s restrooms is unfounded and transmisogynistic. And one of the TERF users decided to respond to her with a link to a news article about one male predator who did happen to pretend to be a woman. They’re so transparent.

        5. And of course the man who runs that site hasn’t done shit to address the TERFiness going on there.

          That aspect infuriates me. Not only hasn’t he done anything to address it, but he’s made the person in question a moderator. Probably because she’s so “brutally honest” about trans women and their unchangeable maleness. Disregarding the fact that people like that are usually far more interested in brutality than they are in honesty. Even assuming for the sake of argument that she knew what she was talking about.

          Is there an email address for Dave Futrelle on the site? I didn’t see one, and I’m tempted to give him a piece of my mind about how he’s ruining any reputation he may have for being a feminist. And forgetting that most MRAs take exactly the same view of trans people as TERFs do.

        6. The email is on the blog sidebar: futrelle [at] WeHuntedTheMammoth.com. I attribute his non-responsiveness to this situation to him being oblivious about trans women’s issues, to be honest. He apologized once in an email to me before, demonstrating that what he cares about the most is communal cohesion. That doesn’t excuse his inaction at all, but I think it’s important to point out that aspect of him.

          I’m honestly itching to go back there momentarily to say what’s on my mind, although I’m not sure if it’s a good idea. It’s just so infuriating to see that shit go on and on…

        7. Ack.. I saw that story.. They actually, honest-to-Gord, linked to the TORONTO SUN?

          Let’s put it this way.. The Sun is on par with Fox news and the Daily Fail.

          *shudders*

    2. I just cannot believe that they are a mod there. Their comments are complete fail, over and over again. UGH…

      1. Well, that was certainly a big clusterf*ck, but at least by posting there myself to try to point out what I was seeing, I (unintentionally) ended up drawing a great deal of the hostility away from Ally and towards myself. And the blog owner did emphasize that it’s supposed to be a trans-friendly, TERF-free place. And the moderator in question has been removed as a moderator, at least for the time being. Whether certain people will listen and will ever stop being aggressive (including a whole lot of micro-aggression) towards trans people — or truly understand what the problem is — I’m not sure.

        The thread’s closed now, but if anyone’s interested in seeing what happened, they can start with http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/01/16/the-new-statesmans-margaret-corvid-on-the-ways-misogyny-restricts-male-sexuality/comment-page-11/#comments, and read the last three pages of comments.

        1. Hey, I didn’t know you and Ally had a secret hit squad! I love how three trans people showing up to call them on their bullshit suddenly becomes a mob. Particularly interesting was some commenters’ insistence that Ally went and “called her friends” because multiple people disagreed with them. Interesting because one of those people is fries jones and you and she used to get into it over at SVKA, so their assumption that all the trans people disagreeing with them must be in cahoots was especially funny. Because of course you wouldn’t have any reason to disagree on the sheer merits!

          Also making fun of someone for believing their husband is a reincarnated member of a European royal house is just as mean as transphobia. Some people really have no sense of proportion.

          I used to read that blog often, and the comments used to be a good time, but the blog is dedicated to mocking trolls and MRAs, so maybe the group dynamic isn’t really receptive to hard-hitting topics. Not that it makes any of what went on over there ok, but Dave should at least be thoughtful enough to recognize the limits of his blog’s culture and draw the appropriate lines.

          1. the head of a giraffe against a bright blue sky: its mouth is pursed sidewaysSeriously considering shutting this subthread down now. While mentioning Threads Of Doom on other blogs as examples of issues in action can be useful, allowing such discussions to become personalised and snarky doesn’t seem to be useful at all.

            There were some positive developments on that thread as well as the confronting/erasing WTFs, so how about we concentrate on the positives if we are going to keep talking about it?

        2. Apologies for the stoush, tigtog. I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I think it’s compliment to the mods and community of Feministe that many of us have been comfortable discussing inter-blog dustups here, because I at least trust the moderation and posters here to be even-handed, and also to let us know when we’ve crossed a line. Thank you for your modly patience and for giving us the space to complain here sometimes.

          1. WTF is just for the usual, Donna. There were certainly a few comments on the WHTM thread that elicited a WTF from me.

            Thanks everybody for understanding the line I’m drawing here. I’m happy to see analyses of Threads of Doom that include some venting regarding problematic statements/tropes etc, I just don’t want to perpetuate stoush or escalate into interblog disputes.

          2. BTW, just did a check on the comments database both here and at Hoyden – kittehserf stopped commenting on both blogs in mid-August last year. This rather makes me suspect that whatever prompted her decision was something to do with me (it’s all about me!). I have no idea what particular comment/post/moderation-decision it may have been though, seeing as she never sought clarification on whatever it was, she just stopped commenting.

        3. My perception has been that WHTM is intentionally a space with a very, very loose moderation policy, but that the owners/operators of the blog are solidly feminist, anti-racist, anti-transphobic etc. Is that right?

          (Feel free to ignore if this counts as escalation, not trying to talk around mods here).

          Also making fun of someone for believing their husband is a reincarnated member of a European royal house is just as mean as transphobia. Some people really have no sense of proportion.

          What.

          1. Also making fun of someone for believing their husband is a reincarnated member of a European royal house is just as mean as transphobia. Some people really have no sense of proportion.

            What.

            Not reincarnated actually. Disembodied spirit relationship “across the veil”.

            I don’t believe in spirits (or reincarnation) or any veil between life and any afterlife, but given that I’m equally skeptical of anybody else’s supernatural/religious claims I never felt like taking issue with her beliefs more than anybody else’s.

        4. Not reincarnated actually. Disembodied spirit relationship “across the veil”.

          I don’t believe in spirits (or reincarnation) or any veil between life and any afterlife, but given that I’m equally skeptical of anybody else’s supernatural/religious claims I never felt like taking issue with her beliefs more than anybody else’s.

          The line between mental illness and religion becomes pretty blurry once we’re out of the realm of the abstract and into the experiential, though. If she believes in reincarnation, fine. If she believes she’s having daily conversations with Louie XIV, as she states on her blog (I won’t post the tool I used to find it, since she apparently tried to delete the content and remove the archive), that points to something scarier. Similarly, believing in angels is fine, but if you can not-metaphorically hear their voices ordering you to do things, you need help.

          I say this not to mock, but because I actually think it’s probably not cool to be mocking her for this. She sounds like a transphobic asshole but she also seems likely to be suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness. I had someone with paranoid schizophrenia in my life for a long time and delusions are scary and real to the people having them.

        5. I really don’t see the point in speculating and/or mocking someone’s spiritual beliefs, even though not everyone agrees with them. Pointing out the fact that she has expressed transmisogynistic views and behaved in transmisogynistic ways is fair because it’s true and because transmisogyny is actually harmful. Personal spiritual beliefs that concern no one but herself, on the other hand, are harmless. I think it’s best if we all avoid mocking them.

          And also, tigtog, I apologize if I made any inflammatory remarks in this thread that didn’t sit well with you.

          1. Aaliyah, IMO you managed to tread a careful line reasonably well here (eta: a few remarks about the WHTM blog owner were borderline). No apologies needed.

        6. without wanting to reopen or dwell on this, I obviously disagree. I think assuming that a (to me) silly belief is a product of mental illness is more inherently offensive and demeaning, but YMMV as always.

          1. Thanks gratuitous_violet – I agree that internet-only psych diagnosis is something that even qualified mental health professionals avoid for very good reasons, and I don’t see the utility in engaging with such speculation here.

        7. I think assuming that a (to me) silly belief is a product of mental illness is more inherently offensive and demeaning, but YMMV as always.

          I agree 100%.

        8. I am like tigtog in terms of being skeptical of all religious/spiritual claims.
          However, I have heard voices from the ether, seen things that weren’t there, had mystical experiences, and even seemingly entered new dimensions. These experiences all happened after taking hallucinogenic drugs for recreational purposes. While it’s true, when I wake up the next day I am fully aware that these were experiences that occurred all in my mind, but I would never label them as bad, in fact I would label most of them as good, like a good book or a good movie. In fact I really love the moderate use of psychedelics, and in some ways I envy someone who can get there with out having to take mushrooms, LSD, DMT or whatever.

        9. N.B. The purpose of my post above was not to prolong the discussion above (which I don’t really understand as I haven’t read the blogs involved,) but to change the subject to the nature of reality.

        10. N.B. The purpose of my post above was not to prolong the discussion above (which I don’t really understand as I haven’t read the blogs involved,) but to change the subject to the nature of reality.

        11. In fact I really love the moderate use of psychedelics, and in some ways I envy someone who can get there with out having to take mushrooms, LSD, DMT or whatever.

          Try having your boyfriend scream at you because he thinks the government is sending you coded messages from the TV set and get back to me.

        12. Try having your boyfriend scream at you because he thinks the government is sending you coded messages from the TV set and get back to me.

          That sounds awful and I’m sorry you have to go through that, but in terms of THIS discussion it’s been strongly suggested we avoid actual diagnoses of mental illness. I am merely talking about having a extremely vivid imagination. I can appreciate that as both an artist and a drug user.

        13. It seems to me that the reason that person’s beliefs were, in fact, relevant was that biology and “reality” were her stated bases for her transphobia, and her insistence that trans women are male. Mocking her because of the mere existence of those beliefs was not the point; it was highlighting the irony and hypocrisy.

          1. Highlighting the inconsistency was relevant, absolutely. It was fairly obvious though, being the internet, that wouldn’t be where it stayed unless a line was drawn under it, so I decided to draw that line.

    1. Can we see it? I couldn’t find your art on your blog, although I’m incompetent so it could just be that. If you have any kind of website to showcase your art, I’m sure many here would like to see and support, so perhaps consider posting (self promotion sundays would be perfect for this too).

      1. I posted a link to my art blog in the Shameless Sunday post a couple weeks ago.. I’ve only been doing this for 5 years, and am just starting to really kind of take it seriously. So I can’t feel to bad for myself.. I’m competing with people who have been doing this for years and have formal education in visual arts, and have been involved in the community for much, much longer.

        This is the one that I entered:

        http://actuallyacollection.blogspot.ca/2014/12/concrete-and-flowers-in-sault-ste-marie.html

        The theme of the show was to be “From Sky to Shore” so I thought this was fitting, but I guess some mileage may vary.

        1. I really like this. My favorite piece on your site (I browsed briefly) is the piano in the forest, though. Really beautiful work.

  2. This post is a really excellent summary of why, as a survivor of abuse, I can’t get behind the default/mainstream feminist take on the #Gamergate fiasco, and why I think so many feminist commentators have gone off the rails on this one. Spoiler alert: it’s not about ethics in gaming journalism.

    I’m unbelievably grateful to have found this because it’s from a clearly pro-social-justice, feminist, intersectional perspective and everything else I’ve come across is either misogynistic trash and implicitly (sometimes explicitly) pro-harassment, or takes the position that victims of abuse should shut the fuck up because it’s a private matter, in a way that, coming from people I thought I trusted to be feminists, makes me want to curl up into a ball and die.

    Excerpt/conclusion:

    Fifth: people think that it’s a private matter. I agree that many sorts of relationship misbehavior are private matters. If Eron Gjoni were actually a jilted ex who was upset his partner cheated on him, he would have no call to tell the Internet about it. But abuse is not a private matter, as feminists have discussed endlessly. Abuse has serious physical and emotional consequences for the victims. The majority of abusers repeatedly abuse. An abuse survivor who is public about their experiences– and this is a tremendously private decision and I would never say it should be mandatory– allows future partners to make an informed decision and potentially avoid being abused themselves. If you would like your abuse not to be public, then I recommend that you not abuse people. After you have abused someone, your right to have others not know about this is revoked.

    In conclusion: I believe the balance of evidence shows that Zoe Quinn emotionally abused Eron Gjoni. This does not justify harassment against her or invalidate critiques of sexism in gaming. However, I think we should at least acknowledge her abuse in our condemnations, reconsider making her a Perfect Flawless Feminist Hero, and stop fucking calling an abuse survivor a “jilted ex” or accusing him of being a narcissistic misogynist for outing his abuser.

    1. Sorry but I thought that article was #1 grade A bullshit.

      Lying to someone and then covering it up is not gaslighting. Gaslighting is making someone think they have done/said things that they haven’t done. When you’re cheating on your partner, you’re going to lie about it- it’s the default mode. If you have ‘evidence’ that your girlfriend is cheating on you, of course she’s going to deny it whether she is or not. Is every person who protests their innocence despite evidence gaslighting? Because that happens all the time in and out of relationships. Both the boyfriend and the writer of this post show astounding immaturity in their understanding of relationships.

      That said, we still only have one side of the story, and even if this was gaslighting, it’s still a private matter, and certainly has nothing to do with ‘gamergate.’

      So, fail, fail, fail and more fail.

      1. Gaslighting is making someone think they have done/said things that they haven’t done.

        Not exactly.

        Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted/spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception and sanity. (Wikipedia.)

        The essential ingredient is the goal of getting the victim to discount their own perceptions in general, not just of one specific event, and instead to rely on the abuser’s version of things.

        Someone lying about whether they cheated doesn’t come anywhere close, unless it’s done with the goal of making the cheated-upon stop trusting his/her own ability to perceive things.

        The same for “abuse.” Abuse requires an imbalance of power, mainly that the victim can’t prevent the abuse, nor can they get away from the abuser. Doing something hurtful or that makes someone unhappy is not by itself abuse. I have yet to hear anyone even claim that Zoe Quinn was in a position of such power over her boyfriend.

        1. I read his blog months ago. I recall there being numerous mutually manipulative behaviors going on. And his reactions raised some red flags as well. Sounded like 2 immature, manipulative people got into a relationship that blew up in flames. Both came off as emotionally abusive.

          Nice summation…but I’ll ad this:

          Both came off equally abusive during the relationship…yet the woman gets a HUGE majority of the demonstrably more voluminous abuse after the relationship.

          That is where gamergate started and that is where it stands.

      2. So you didn’t even read the fucking post, huh? How about threatening to kill yourself when your partner wants to leave? How about cutting your partner off from their friends? How about publicizing your partner’s history of mental illness to further control and isolate them?

        we still only have one side of the story

        it’s still a private matter

        Holy. Fucking. Shit. I don’t even have words. It’s like apologist bingo here.

        It’s not enough that Eron provided proof of Zoes actions, because there’s literally not enough proof in the world to convince you to believe a survivor, is there? You’d rather people who were abused or raped just stay in their little corners and not rock the boat, because it’s uncomfortable for you.

        and certainly has nothing to do with ‘gamergate.’

        I don’t understand how this is a thought someone can have. It literally is the issue at stake. Whether Eron was justified in publishing his post, disclosing his abuse and providing evidence, has been the subject of countless articles here and elsewhere. I described why those articles felt shitty as a survivor, and you still couldn’t take the fucking time to even read the article I linked.

        The same for “abuse.” Abuse requires an imbalance of power, mainly that the victim can’t prevent the abuse, nor can they get away from the abuser. Doing something hurtful or that makes someone unhappy is not by itself abuse. I have yet to hear anyone even claim that Zoe Quinn was in a position of such power over her boyfriend.

        Jesus fucking Christ, am I seriously hearing “why don’t they just leave” on a feminist website? You don’t fucking understand how abuse works if you think it requires the physical power to prevent someone from leaving.

        And by the way, threatening to kill yourself when your partner wants to leave is a classic way of keeping abuse victims in line.

        And so is cutting them off from their friends and family.

        And these are behaviors Zoe Quin exhibited.

        And since fucking when was it the feminist position to disbelieve people who identified as survivors? It’s clearly more important to protect Important Internet Feminists reputation then it is for actual victims to get support or justice. I’m sure you’re all huge fans of Hugo Schwyzer too, or at least you were right up until you get get more fucking points by changing your mind.

        People like you two are why it took me so long to leave, why I still struggle disclosing what happened to me (except, I thought, in feminist social justice friendly spaces, ha). I have to go before I totally cross the line in what I say to you, but seriously, fuck off.

        1. So you didn’t even read the fucking post, huh?

          I read the post and quite frankly I found passages such as:

          Zoe Quinn repeatedly threatens suicide when her bad behavior is brought up and at one point attempts suicide in the middle of an argument. This is inherently abusive.

          Attempting suicide is abusive? Do me a favor. This article sickens me and I wish I hadn’t read it. I don’t need to see this sort of vile face of humanity that would pore through someone else’s private communication and use that against them for their own amateur psychoanalysis games. Utterly revolting.

        2. That’s where I stopped reading too, FS. Threatening suicide can be abusive and manipulative, certainly. But inherently? And then going on to castigate her for her treatment of his mental health issues? No.

        3. If only the author had addressed that.

          Oh wait:

          This doesn’t mean not talking about your suicidality, not taking care of yourself, or not leaving situations that make you suicidal. It is possible to responsibly be like “this conversation is making me feel suicidal; I’d like to continue discussing it, but can we take a break for an hour?” and then seek support from someone else to get yourself in a good place. Telling your partner “I should kill myself” when they are talking about how you hurt them is not that. It is an act of abuse.

          Maybe you’ve never had a partner threaten suicide whenever you tried to leave them, or criticized them, or told them they were hurting you. Maybe that seems like a fucking joke to you. You’re wrong.

          And this:

          someone else’s private communication

          Victims shouldn’t go public. Definitely not if they have proof. Got it.

        4. So basically the lessons here are:

          1) Emotional abuse isn’t real abuse
          2) Don’t go public if you’re a victim of abuse
          3) Definitely don’t provide any evidence of abuse, because that’s violating your abuser’s privacy
          4) If your abuser is an important internet feminist you owe it to the cause to shut the fuck up

          I feel so safe here!

        5. Don’t you see the horrible fucking double standard you’re imposing? You won’t believe survivors if they don’t offer proof they were abused (or we wouldn’t even be having this conversation), but if they do offer proof, that’s “violating privacy” and “vile” and so that becomes a reason not to believe them!

          Your position genuinely seems to be that the only option for survivors is to shut up. I can’t see a different way to reconcile those two beliefs.

        6. Ludlow is right here. Threatening to kill yourself when your partner tries to leave is inherently abusive. It demonstrates a powerful imbalance because the person is literally holding a human life hostage to force compliance.

          Abuse including emotional abuse should be spoken about because it’s the only way to spread knowledge.

          Frankly, in a case of cheating I find no moral or ethical problem with searching email. If only information pertaining to the cheating and abuse was disclosed I don’t find a violation of privacy. It’s not libel if it’s true.

        7. Ludlow is right here. Threatening to kill yourself when your partner tries to leave is inherently abusive. It demonstrates a powerful imbalance because the person is literally holding a human life hostage to force compliance.

          Please re-read the passage I took issue with:

          Zoe Quinn repeatedly threatens suicide when her bad behavior is brought up and at one point ATTEMPTS suicide in the middle of an argument.

          You say threatening to kill yourself when your partner tries TO LEAVE is inherently abusive. That’s not what’s happening here, she is threatening suicide when being berated (aka ‘her bad behavior is brought up.) However, both the author and ludlow are implying that this is happening. That aside, I don’t understand how ATTEMPTING suicide is abuse, even if it was ‘during an argument,’ as if that makes a suicide attenp an act of aggression. How dare you commit suicide? Aren’t you thinking of my feelings.

          This is just one of several ways in which the author equates normal relationship behavior with abusive relationship behavior, giving the example of abusive people who try to isolate the partner from their friends and family. This ‘pattern’ is established by ONE example of Quinn not wanting Eron to hang out with an ex-girlfriend. Firstly, one thing does not make a pattern, and in the second it is perfectly reasonable to be jealous of a partner hanging out with their ex-partner and that is not the same as isolating friends and family.
          The article was just a bunch of clutching at straws and theorizing and quire frankly poring over this private exchange so you can analyze Zoe Quinn and pass judgement on her for your own fulfillment purposes is not much different than masturbating to leaked photos of Jennifer Lawrence.

        8. Frankly, in a case of cheating I find no moral or ethical problem with searching email. If only information pertaining to the cheating and abuse was disclosed I don’t find a violation of privacy. It’s not libel if it’s true.

          Thank you. Just to be clear, what Eron released was a series of chat logs between himself and Zoe- he didn’t break into her e-mails or anything like that.

        9. I read his blog months ago. I recall there being numerous mutually manipulative behaviors going on. And his reactions raised some red flags as well. Sounded like 2 immature, manipulative people got into a relationship that blew up in flames. Both came off as emotionally abusive.

        10. My best friend read his blog ages ago too, pheeno, and she said almost exactly the same thing as you, like word for word.

        11. I read his blog months ago. I recall there being numerous mutually manipulative behaviors going on. And his reactions raised some red flags as well. Sounded like 2 immature, manipulative people got into a relationship that blew up in flames. Both came off as emotionally abusive.

          I don’t read it that way, but if you do, OK. And obviously (despite the fact that I shouldn’t have to say it) the gamergate trolls are misogynistic assholes, and harassment and stalking are wrong, and [insert other necessary disclaimers].

          But I hope you can see why, as a survivor, it was so gratifying to read something in the feminist blogosphere that validated ideas like yes, it’s OK to out abusers and yes, we should believe victims, and no, abusers don’t have the right to privacy even when the accused abuser was a Famous Internet Feminist. Because even if, on a careful consideration of the evidence, you decide you think the abuse was mutual, the vast, vast majority of people posting about this aren’t even getting that far; they’re just deciding that he should shut up and sit down without even considering the implications of that stance.

          And from someone who’s lived through the gut-wrenching terror and guilt, fixable only by enforced emotional numbness, of being in a relationship where literally everything your partner wants (“You don’t want to see the movie I want to see? If you’re willing to fight about such a small thing, you must not really love me, so there’s no reason for me to live”), hearing things like

          it’s still a private matter

          hurts.

          1. even when the accused abuser was a Famous Internet Feminist

            As a point of order, was Zoe Quinn a “Famous Internet Feminist” before GamerGate? She’s become infamous since, but I’d certainly never heard of her even as a game developer, let alone as a feminist of note (not that I’m particularly keeping track, but I do get email updates from a bunch of blogs that put out regular linkfests, and if any of them had mentioned her I hadn’t noticed it happening). When I read that blog it was about a relationship between two people I’d never heard of, and it seemed clearly one of mutual toxicity.

        12. That may be biased- I’d come across Depression Quest (one of her games) a couple times in other discussions of women in game development. It’s possible the cognitive bias is less about Important Internet Feminists and more “lots of shitty misogynists have taken side A, therefore I’m required to take side B,” with a side helping of “arguments are soldiers,” “abuse of men isn’t quite real,” and “emotional abuse isn’t quite real.”

          But the general point is that a lot of people are attacking someone who accused their ex of abuse. And while I could maybe tolerate that from people who’d actually read the source material and decided it didn’t support the accusation of abuse (though I still think a policy of believing survivors is a good one), the fact people are so willing to disbelieve an (alleged) survivor without even bothering to do that basic level of due diligence speaks to something deeper and more problematic. In other words- why do you feel comfortable calling (alleged) victims and survivors liars if you haven’t even familiarized yourself with the specifics of their accusations? Doesn’t that suggest a deeply flawed outlook on how often people lie about abuse? And how can I trust that you don’t apply the same disbelief to survivors of rape, or child abuse, or any other crime where the victim is put on trial?

          In particular, the demand to provide evidence of abuse, coupled with the assertion that actually providing said evidence violates the privacy of the person you’re accusing, is really familiar and frustrating and enraging. And I didn’t expect it here.

          Sorry for all the cursing earlier, incidentally. I lost it pretty hard because this subject gets to me. Anyways, I’m working on that.

        13. Maybe you’ve never had a partner threaten suicide whenever you tried to leave them, or criticized them, or told them they were hurting you. Maybe that seems like a fucking joke to you.

          Oh, how nice, I just saw this. And maybe abusive assholes in my family have done this repeatedly and I have some knowledge of it and the havoc it can wreak, and yet I still disagree with you and this post’s assessment of Quinn’s behavior. Maybe that can happen–someone can have some experience and somehow manage to disagree with you nonetheless. Maybe I think that somebody who designed a game about a depression might not be threatening or attempting suicide just or even mainly as an act of aggressive manipulation. Maybe I think that expecting the level of self-possessed maturity required to say what the blog post says she should’ve from one of two obviously not terribly mature people is far more than it ever seems to expect of the dude in question.

        14. But the general point is that a lot of people are attacking someone who accused their ex of abuse.

          I want to be clear that I was attacking the amateur psychologists who are choosing to make in depth analyses of a (one-time) private conversation. I was not attacking either of the people having the conversation.

          The person that I found the most offensive after reading the post you linked, was the author of the post. Though I should have expected such a response when I saw the name of the person who made the post.

          LOOK UPON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR!

        15. I pointed out the behaviors of his that carried the earmarks of abuse to him. Like, his reading her email and texts. His reasoning, from his own lips ( or fingers since he typed it) wasn’t that he didn’t trust her but that he was trying to make her stick to the values she’d said she had. Make her adhere to values. Not jealousy, which would be normal if not a bit controlling. I told him it wasn’t his place to make her adhere to anything. There were several other instances where his claimed motivation was to force her to feel humiliated by confronting her own inability to perfectly adhere to some value system. That’s abusive, too. It’s manipulative, too.

          I also informed him that it was extremely crappy of him to out the cheating husband with zero consideration of how that would affect the innocent wife. Her life was blown up and placed on the net.

        16. And sure, as a survivor of abusive relationships myself, it’s good to see abusers outed. I also know that while 2 of my relationships were one sidedly abusive with me as the victim, I’ve had others were I participated in equally abusive behavior. I dished it right back. They yelled, screamed, controlled and beat…And I yelled, screamed, controlled and beat right back. We thought that was passion. Proof of how hard we loved. We were wrong, of course, but we were both abusive. I see that in his blog. I see 2 young, dumb kids mistaking certain things for love and trying to destroy each other in the process. He outed himself, though unintentionally. Most articles on him miss that completely. Unfortunately, I’m good at spotting those kinds of relationships. I’ve been in enough of them.

      3. Someone lying about whether they cheated doesn’t come anywhere close, unless it’s done with the goal of making the cheated-upon stop trusting his/her own ability to perceive things.

        Did. You. Read?

        1. Like, the author literally says the exact same thing:

          Cheating is morally wrong, but it is nonabusive. Similarly, lying to your partner is morally wrong, but absent a relationship in which you establish power and control, it is nonabusive.

          before going on to explain why Zoe’s behavior was abusive. You people didn’t fucking bother to read the article, and I’m guessing it’s because it’s more fun and easier to take potshots than risk engaging.

        2. That aside, I don’t understand how ATTEMPTING suicide is abuse, even if it was ‘during an argument,’ as if that makes a suicide attenp an act of aggression. How dare you commit suicide? Aren’t you thinking of my feelings.

          It’s an act of aggression if she did it in an effort to manipulate.

  3. Does anybody know any decent remedies for insomnia that a pregnant woman can safely employ? I have never had this problem before in my entire life, but I’m not getting more than two to four hours of sleep a night for the past 3 weeks, and this is killing me. I was up crying the other night and I couldn’t figure out whether I was depressed or just really, really tired.

      1. Thank you! I haven’t gotten a hold of any of my doctors yet, not by Ob-Gyn or my psychiatrist. Last night I slept from 11-1, and then lay awake until 5, when my godson came to get me because he wanted some milk. I got back to sleep at 6, and then he woke me at 8 demanding breakfast. I heroically love him as much as ever.

        1. My Ziggy does this kind of thing to me almost every night. Plus jumping on my chest and hitting me in the head until I wake up.

          But because he’s a cat, I don’t feel guilty about putting him out of my bedroom and shutting the door in order to get more sleep. I know he won’t starve!

          But I do remember what it was like when my son was that age. And yes, I still love him nonetheless.

    1. Insomnia during pregnancy is, IMO, your body prepping you for the fact you will get little sleep for the next 20 years. Don’t know what you can take for it, but I hope you get ahold your doctor soon and get some sleep.

    2. I believe my sister-in-law was given teas with valerian root by her hippy doula to help her sleep during her long labor. I have no idea of it’s safety for earlier in pregnancy but I love the stuff to knock me out. DAVIDstea makes a few with valerian.

    3. I’m so sorry about that EG, that sucks. 🙁 My brother has insomnia, too, and I have sleeping problems due to PTSD and my bipolar disorder. I can recommend some drugs but unfortunately I don’t know if they are safe during pregnancy. Melatonin might be ok under 3mg doses for pregnant people, as far as I know, but it may occasionally cause fucked up or weird dreams. Take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

    4. Many thanks to everybody for the suggestions! (Except for Fat Steve who is clearly trying to kill me…I’m kidding.) I will look into them all. The only one I know about is that I’m not supposed to take melatonin while being treated for depression, but I will ask about that anyway, because I need to get some sleep.

      1. Oh shit, I forgot about your depression. X_X Sorry for overlooking that. You may also want to consider kava, although I don’t know if that’s ok during pregnancy. Kava is an active ingredient in Xanax and it’s great for relaxation. The times I’ve had moderate doses of kava root powder mixed in some water (warning: it tastes pretty bad) have resulted in me sleeping almost instantly. It also might help with depressive episodes.

        1. No need to be sorry! It’s not your job to keep track my medical stuff–I’m grateful for your suggestions and advice, and I’ll definitely look into the kava too.

    5. EG- I don’t know if it’s available/practical for you, but a couple people have told me that prenatal massage was a huge deal for addressing their insomnia.

    6. EG, I found that aromatherapy helped me a great deal – if that’s your bag, you could always try it. Lavender is the standard go-to for sleep assistance, but I’ve met people who also have great success with sage, Roman chamomile or Rose can work too. Basically if it smells good to you, it can help.

      The best ways to use it to induce sleep are either a linen mist (which you can buy ready made or you can make your own) or by placing a few drops in a warm bath.

      I also always swear by warming my hands and feet. My body tends to overheat during the night but cold hands and feet keep me up (especially while pregnant). You can buy these socks and/or gloves that you can heat in a microwave and then slip them on and they’re supposed to help. They were useful to me when I reached end-stage pregnancy and really needed help with drifting off.

      1. Thanks! I love lavender oil and have some around, so that’s easy enough to try…at worst I’ll get to smell some lavender, and that’s all to the good.

    7. If Ambien is safe, I have to say that it has always been extremely helpful to me with my insomnia. Since my friend was killed, I’ve been taking it almost every night. Don’t know what I’d do without it.

    1. I’d heard of it. The story’s been around a long time. Of course, Prescott Bush wasn’t the only American who profited from dealing with Nazis. Not to mention people of all sorts of other nationalities.

      The article is from 10 years ago; I don’t know what happened with the lawsuit it mentions.

      It’s kind of silly, though, that the article thought it was important to mention the Bushes’ membership in the “secretive and influential” Skull and Bones, as if that has anything to do with the subject. Speculation about Skull and Bones is about on a level with obsessing about the Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission. (Not that I’m a member — no secret society would have asked someone like me, and I wouldn’t have been interested. But I’ve known some people who did belong, and it’s not really a key to the Universe.)

      1. Yeah, that part was silly. I just mean…exactly…it’s an old article and somehow I have drifted through life not knowing anything about this! Christ, I feel like an idiot.

        I’m going back to calling right-wingers “evil.” They constantly fail to meet even my lowest standards for non-evil.

  4. I’m taking an intensive Pharmacy Assistant program at my local technical college and even though I know it’s just a stepping stone to a second degree in a few years and travel and an apartment, I’m miserable and I feel like a failure. And because I hold myself to ridiculously high standards that I don’t hold anyone else to and I don’t know how to cope with it. I think I need to be perfect to be worth loving and being 23 and living with my parents and doing a program I don’t really enjoy or find fulfilling is so far from perfect, but at the same time I know that I am no further behind most and slower is not worse.

    Tl;dr: if anyone told me they felt ths way I’d tell them how wrong they are but I can’t convince myself

  5. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/science/more-progress-made-toward-learning-contents-of-herculaneum-scrolls.html

    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/20/words-ancient-scrolls-eruption-vesuvius-x-ray-herculaneum

    I’ve always found the idea of scientists and scholars being able to decipher the Herculaneum scrolls — leading to the possible recovery of lost ancient literature — to be incredibly exciting. This new development makes me think that perhaps it might happen in my lifetime.

    1. I just put up a SOTU thread.

      Was dishearted to learn on reading MSM comments elsewhere that apparently some reactionary goons have started a NAAWP organisation. I don’t know how long ago or how big their membership is, but I bet every single member is a birther.

      1. I was handed a card on the street about them when I was in elementary school, so if it’s the same group, they’ve been around for at least 25 years or more. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than the alternative.

  6. Insomnia update:

    I took a Unisom and slept through the night. That part is great. The active ingredient in Unisom, however, is the same as was in the anti-nausea drug they had me on (perfectly harmless and well-tested), which suggests to me that these weeks of insomnia hell has been withdrawal from the anti-nausea drug. (Pregnancy: the only healthy state in which eating and sleeping are too much to ask.) So I’m going to get a few nights of good sleep, and then try to wean myself slowly off the Unisom.

    1. That’s wonderful news, and I’m so glad to hear it. Just out of curiosity: I thought that Unisom, like Sominex, contains Diphenhydramine, which is the same ingredient as Benadryl, which I think you’ve said didn’t help you. Does it also have other ingredients?

      1. There are two different Unisoms–one has the Benadryl drug, and the other has the anti-nausea drug. Nobody knows why Unisom does that, but it does.

        1. Thanks; I didn’t realize. I’m sorry for steering you wrong about their being the same.

          But I’m so glad that you’ve found something that helps you.

  7. TRIGGER WARNING: horrible trans hate quote from Sheila Jeffreys

    This thread had me thinking about the whole transphobia issue sitting on the planet today. So, I was trying to think of ways in which trans women were different than cis women and if these differences in any way justified the TERF attitude. The only things I could of that were definitively different were chromosomes and reproductive system, neither of which, I could see any way, is going to have people treat you with male privilege if you present as a woman. When I got back home I wondered what the arguments these TERFS could be making and I came across this from Sheila Jeffreys, which doesn’t even bother to argue that trans woman have privilege, it posits that they are that they are brainwashed victims:

    Transsexual surgery could be likened to political psychiatry in the Soviet Union. I suggest that transsexualism should best be seen in this light, as directly political, medical abuse of human rights. The mutilation of healthy bodies and the subjection of such bodies to dangerous and life-threatening continuing treatment violates such people’s rights to live with dignity in the body into which they were born, what Janice Raymond refers to as their “native” bodies. It represents an attack on the body to rectify a political condition, “gender” dissatisfaction in a male supremacist society based upon a false and politically constructed notion of gender difference. – Sheila Jeffreys –

    *Italics mine

    Now, it’s fair to say that in a male supremacist society, males are considered supreme, hence the term ‘male supremacist, but the prediction of the future aspect makes this almost evangelistic. Even if we presume that there would be considerably less trans women if we lived in a non-male supremacist society, surely there would also be less feminists.

    1. The only things I could of that were definitively different were chromosomes and reproductive system, neither of which, I could see any way, is going to have people treat you with male privilege if you present as a woman.

      You left out socialization. Most of the behavioral differences between cis men and cis women are due to socialization, and most trans people have been socialized as their assigned gender during their formative years. (This may change as people are more willing to consider the possibility that even young children can be trans and to raise them as the gender they identify with rather than the one they were assigned to.)

      I don’t know what to make of the Jeffreys quote. She seems to be talking about a different species from mine. The only part I can make much sense of is:

      a male supremacist society based upon a false and politically constructed notion of gender difference.

      But the preceding text sounds to me like she’s the one defending “a false and politically constructed notion of gender difference.” It’s transgender people, and especially the fact that they exist at all, that are challenging this “false and politically constructed notion ….”

      1. most trans people have been socialized as their assigned gender during their formative years.

        I disagree. All trans women, regardless of how people label them, have been socialized as female. (Speaking of socialization, that’s a process that is facilitated by more people than just parents and family members.) Even trans women in the closet to others or themselves have only ever undergone female socialization. That’s because what determines male privilege isn’t how one is merely perceived, but rather where one is situated within patriarchy. And as a butch trans lesbian myself, who is often seen as a dude in public, I neither have psychologically ingrained male entitlement nor do I have any experiences that reflect a male status of any kind. I experienced the worst misogyny of my life when I was stuck with family members who treated me like an object and actively exploited my timidity and fear of saying no. That was before I came out to myself. Also, even when people do label me as male, they minimally recognize me as someone who isn’t quite the same as a cis guy.

        As for trans men, they are socialized as male. Their birth assignment doesn’t challenge the fact that, even as they are misperceived as female, they internalize male entitlement and are situated within patriarchy as men. Of course, I won’t deny that trans men face a lot of transphobia, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have male privilege as well.

        1. I kind of hate this discussion — it’s as if Fat Steve is asking for a Trans 101 explanation (or refutation) of the views of one of the most transphobic feminists in existence. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of resources out there. Including dozens of explanatory articles at places like transadvocate.com, and elsewhere.

          I don’t want any part of it. Any more than I’d like it if someone posted the quote from Janice Raymond about how “all transsexuals rape women” by appropriating female bodies, and then said “Discuss.”

          So I refuse to be tasked with refuting bigotry. I did that enough the first year or so I was here.

        2. You’re right, Donna. I’m sorry I legitimized the ideas by responding to them; I just didn’t want the burden of attacking them to fall only to trans women.

        3. No apology, necessary, EG. Anyway, you were responding not to the Jeffries quote, but to the “male socialization” issue that AMM brought up.

        4. I kind of hate this discussion — it’s as if Fat Steve is asking for a Trans 101 explanation (or refutation) of the views of one of the most transphobic feminists in existence. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of resources out there. Including dozens of explanatory articles at places like transadvocate.com, and elsewhere.

          I don’t want any part of it. Any more than I’d like it if someone posted the quote from Janice Raymond about how “all transsexuals rape women” by appropriating female bodies, and then said “Discuss.”

          So I refuse to be tasked with refuting bigotry. I did that enough the first year or so I was here.

          Sorry, if it seemed like I was asking for a refutation of her views. I thought I was refuting her views.

      2. I agree with Aaliyah. For patriarchal socialization to “take,” the person being socialized has to understand themselves to be the person the patriarchy wants them to be. Trans women, I think, face the double burden of internalizing patriarchy’s negative and harmful socialization of girls/women while also being aware that somehow they should be internalizing the other sort of patriarchal socialization and yet being unable to do so. I have never been close with any trans men, but I imagine a similar sort of double-consciousness develops in them as well.

        1. Having said that I refuse to discuss people like Sheila Jeffries, I can’t completely agree with Aaliyah. Speaking only of trans women (although the same is true of trans men, in reverse), I’d prefer to say that trans women receive an “attempted” male socialization, while still internalizing the messages society sends to women. In essence, they’re socialized as being gender-different. I didn’t have a traditional “girlhood,” but I didn’t have anything like a traditional boyhood either, not one resembling that of a cis boy. Which is why the “MTF” idea; the concept that someone magically goes from “man” to “woman” (whether by social, medical, or surgical transition) is so misguided.

          One example from my early childhood (since I knew I didn’t want to be a boy at least as far back as the age of 3) — my father, when I was about 6, bringing home a button that said “It’s a Man’s World” and urging me to wear it. I didn’t like it; I resented it; and I never wore it. Because I may have known already intellectually that men run things in this world, but I didn’t want any part of it. I never, ever “identified” as a “man” in my life; if people pointed to me and referred to the man standing there I was always tempted to turn my head and look behind me, and it always took a fraction of a second to know that they meant me.

          I won’t argue that no trans women are able to take advantage of and benefit from that socialization, and succeed (at least outwardly) in a male world, and have to go through a process of “re-socialization” when they transition, but I’ve known many who really weren’t able to do so on any more than the most superficial level, if that.

          And the degree to which socialization in one’s assigned gender succeeds (and has to be overcome) is not necessarily tied to the age of transition, or even the age of self-awareness of being gender-different. I’m uncomfortable making claims about my own socialization or lack thereof — because a trans woman’s very act of making such claims, or otherwise being assertive, is often characterized as evidence of “male behavior” — but one of the things that delayed my transition so long (together with an intense, but ultimately misguided, fear of public ridicule and never being able to blend in with other women) was paying too much attention to certain websites which portrayed preparing for transition as akin to preparing for an expedition to Mt. Everest. As it turned out, it wasn’t like that for me at all, and fitting in with the “society of women” was a lot easier for me than fitting in with men had ever been. I suspect that some of that has to do with the fact that I ended up only 5′ 2″ and around 120 pounds, but I didn’t know that I would be that small when I was a child.

        2. This wasn’t intended as a response to EG, but I do agree with her. Maybe “double-consciousness” is a good word for the whole thing.

        3. I don’t know if I like this game. Would we dump a passage from Mein Kampf here and then discuss if we could find any possibly justification for Nazi views? I’m usually strongly against tabooing entire ideological debates, but I don’t know if it’s useful to have this one even if we all actually agree.

          they internalize male entitlement

          I’m way, way outside my area of expertise here so please do tell me to sit down if I’m out of line, but this seems really wrong to me, based both on my friendships with trans* men, and in terms of social theory. Privilege is something society does to you, it’s not something you do; if you’re constantly misgendered as a woman, I don’t know how you’d have any experience with male privilege.

          Think about any privilege checklist. Do people assume trans* men who they misgender as women are more competent at work, for example?

          On the other hand, is it possible this is all a problem with linguistic indeterminacy? We’re talking about a huge group of people, after all, and trying to apply social theory to the real world can’t possibly be perfectly precise. Maybe some trans* men are entitled and others aren’t. Maybe some of that entitlement comes from a sense of male privilege, and some of it comes from other sources. I think it’s possible that we need to let go of some of our urge to neatly categorize everyone into a set of identity boxes, award each box a ‘privileged’ or ‘oppressed’ status, and then do sums.

          We give lip service to intersectionality when we say, for example, gay men are oppressed due to their sexuality but privileged due to being men, but I think we have to go farther and recognize that being gay changes how you experience being a man, and being a man changes how you experience being gay, and that all of those things are different depending on where you live, and how much money you have, and if you’re white, and so on.

          I guess the longer I spend it social justice spaces, the more problems I have with ‘privilege’ as a method of understanding the world. It’s useful as a teaching aid and it starts the conversation, but I don’t think it has as much explanatory power as it needs to. I realize this is tough to discuss because it’s so easy to label someone who’d rather replace privilege with a different theoretical framework as a privilege-denier (i.e. a privileged person who just doesn’t want to admit it).

        4. Ludlow, I agree with you — as I said above — that I hate this discussion, and hate the idea of finding a transphobic quote and asking people to discuss it.

          That said, you have things a little backwards: it’s trans women, not trans men, who supposedly are socialized as male and internalize male entitlement.

          The usefulness (or not) of privilege analysis is kind of a derail here, and maybe should be a different discussion. Although I do think that the idea of intersectionality is helpful in considering your objections. I know that my 24-year old son (who is “visibly gay”) struggles a lot with the notion that he has the same kind of male privilege as a straight man, even though he readily acknowledges — since all his friends in high school were girls — that he’s grateful he didn’t have to deal with what they dealt with.

          For one thing, he gets harassed in the street as much as any woman does. It’s hard for him to see himself as being “the same” as a straight cis man in any material way. Although he does understand intersectionality.

        5. That said, you have things a little backwards: it’s trans women, not trans men, who supposedly are socialized as male and internalize male entitlement.

          I was responded to this:

          As for trans men, they are socialized as male. Their birth assignment doesn’t challenge the fact that, even as they are misperceived as female, they internalize male entitlement and are situated within patriarchy as men.

          Sorry if I’m way out of line though.

  8. I also want to say, setting aside entirely the part of the conversation about WHTM that tigtog drew a line under, that even after all these years, it still hurts to see a community of self-professed feminists (or at least anti-misogynists) — one that purports to be trans-friendly, or at least the blog owner has repeatedly emphasized that that’s his goal — where some (I’m not saying all!) of the regular members are so dismissive of trans women’s viewpoints, and so unwilling to recognize “transphobia” unless it’s outright hate speech and vilification, or physical violence. As if they’re totally unfamiliar with, and unwilling to recognize, the concept of “ciscentrism” (as opposed to outright , affirmative transphobia) and with the micro-aggressions that trans women face on a daily basis.

    Including the insistence that it’s OK to go out of their way to assert that sex is all about chromosomes, and that trans women may be women, but they’re nonetheless “male,” and “feelings” don’t count. Even if one believes that’s the “scientific truth” (and I don’t happen to believe that things are so simple, as I tried to explain over there), why go out of your way to point it out? Especially to trans women? What does it have to do with most trans women’s daily existence? What purpose does it serve other than to divide trans women from other women? I already know very well that I could never be pregnant or bear a child or be a “biological mother”; nobody has to remind me.

    And I also find it ironic that the conversation over there was the very first time in my entire life that someone has called me “sexist.” The context was a particular person (I don’t know if she’s a regular commenter) claiming that the idea of cis privilege is “bullshit,” and giving as an example the fact that because of her family history of breast cancer, she has to get regular mammograms. When I pointed out that a trans woman with the same family history would have the same need for mammograms, her response was entirely dismissive, stating that her brother doesn’t need mammograms, so why should a trans woman, and that I was being “patronizing and sexist.” I asked her what her brother had to do with anything, and explained again that I’m a woman, and I’ve been having mammograms for years. She didn’t respond.

    Just one example. It still hurts to realize that there are so many people who think that trans woman = not only “male,” but man. This is why I almost never disclose my history in real life, and the primary reason why I have been so afraid, ever since my last relationship ended 9 years ago, of trying to find someone else. I’d rather be alone.

    1. First, I’m really sorry that happened. That sucks and it’s wrong.

      Second, in response to this:

      Even if one believes that’s the “scientific truth” (and I don’t happen to believe that things are so simple, as I tried to explain over there), why go out of your way to point it out? Especially to trans women? What does it have to do with most trans women’s daily existence?

      there was one really good quote over there that I think is worth repeating:

      Most people who pride themselves on being brutally honest are in it for the brutality, not the honesty.

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