You Know What’s Really Great?
I love it when land-owning women rant about the “divide” between women who write under aliases and women who write under their own names. You see, land-owning women don’t have to really worry about ending up homeless for what they write. Sure, they are as much at risk of losing a job as the rest of us, but losing a job when you own land outright, and losing a job when you rent are two entirely different things.
For me, the real “divide” is between women who curry favor with their real-life male supremacist family, friends and associates – whom they are afraid to alienate because they do write under their own names – and women who, whether because of an alias or because their real-life associates are also feminists, don’t have to worry about currying favor with male supremacists when writing about feminism.
What I don’t get about this is that both you and Kitty write under your own names.
Who’s she after here?
Mine’s an alias.
Margaret, wise move.
She knows my real name because I’ve given her money for travel expense to various feminist shindigs (a couple of years ago.)
If she wants to out me, that’s fine. I’m a little old lady on old age pension, and I don’t own any property. Much good may it do her.
Anyone know what her real name is now? She has said that she is in the process of legally changing it.
because their real-life associates are also feminists, don’t have to worry about currying favor with male supremacists when writing about feminism.
Well that would be my approach. But then, I try to have integrity.
but losing a job when you own land outright, and losing a job when you rent are two entirely different things.
Or when you have a mortgage payment — though it does take longer for them to kick you out.
OMG, why must feminists keep attacking each other?? This is NOT an expression of solidarity and sisterhood.
Very much agreed UCP.
“For me, the real “divide” is between women who curry favor with their real-life male supremacist family, friends and associates – whom they are afraid to alienate because they do write under their own names – and women who, whether because of an alias or because their real-life associates are also feminists, don’t have to worry about currying favor with male supremacists when writing about feminism.”
Yes.
UndercoverPunk, it’s because (apparently) we never got out of high school.
I’ve found in my life that it’s the women to whom I’ve given the most who turn on me. Resentment? Fear?
Also, shit-stirring (if there’s no basis in reality) yields only a *temporary* power advantage.
I don’t want power. I want freedom. I want a male-free planet.
I think it is pathetic how she includes other women as examples, thus, putting them in the middle of her messiness whether they want to be or not.
It boils down to:
1. Out martyr-ing (“See everyone, I put myself out there for the cause.”)
2. Out good woman-ing (“See everyone, I am better than those women.”)
3. Having no tangible name (“How am I expected to sue!”)(“Thus, prove to patriarchal institutions the merit in my patriarchal work.” Because lawsuits are often only won by people who can convince patriarchal institutions of their patriarchal value)
I mean, what gives? Is she looking for a fight? Does she need a fight?
Wait, wait. I know who she can sue. She can sue wordpress.com. Last time she won a lawsuit she made millions.
Better back up your blog, Kitty.
Why would she try to sue anyone?
Who knows?
She can sue *me*. I’m in Canada.
Bwahhahahahah!
I also have to say that I think writing from a separatist perspective is politically more dangerous than writing from any other feminist stance. I mean, if I were writing about how much I love my son(s), or particular men’s movements in which women happen to be involved but which aren’t focused on women’s freedom, or the greatness of queer theory, or pregnancy as a way to keep fundie husbands’ hands off fundie wives’ bodies, or some men being “exceptions” – well, I reckon I could go ahead and write under my real name too.
I mean, as much as equality feminists are derided in the public eye, they aren’t nearly so demonized as women who don’t want anything to do with men’s “equality.” It’d be nice if there were some recognition by land-owning women wanting to be seen as martyrs for the cause (whose cause? sons’? fundie husband/wife units’?) that there is often a substantial difference in *content* between the blogs of women writing anonymously and those writing under their own names. The nerve of a woman who threw Biting Beaver under the bus (“I’d *never* have supported her saying that she wished she could travel back in time and have an abortion instead of giving birth to a rapist, if I’d known she really meant it!”) to claim the high ground just because she publishes male-friendly, male-supportive stuff and turned her back on BB under her real name. Frankly, I’d rather have a bunch of woman-supporting women writing and commenting under aliases on my side than any number of “out” women who’ll turn on you the second you stop wishing for equality and start wishing for the expedient end of male supremacy.
Yeah. Say what you wanna say and take your lumps with the rest of us, or STFU, is what I say. Some people seem to want the cake of mainstream approval while simultaneously consuming a “radical feminist” identity. Sorry, that’s just not how patriarchy rolls.
A land owning woman could become homeless from job loss. If you don’t pay your property taxes they’ll sell your home and your land out from under you.
But you know what a landowner could do before that happened? She could sell all or part of the land in order to find more affordable accommodations. Also, property taxes are significantly cheaper than a mortgage/rent payment. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it to own property.
No, actually you can’t. It is pretty much an all or nothing situation here. They made zoning laws a while back to keep large parcels from being subdivided.
I get that you are not aware that millions of old people bought homes in this country thinking they would be safe in their retirement, only to find that the housing bubble increased their taxes to the point where they had no choice but to sell and hope the money would stretch till they died.
Seriously! If you bought a home for $14,000 forty years ago and the housing bubble inflated the value to $300,000 you are going to be paying $14,000 a year in taxes. Those folks are only getting $14,000 a year in Social Security.
I don’t care one way or another about Heart’s situation, but what you are saying about people who put their all into buying a house, and are now house poor, is just plain wrong.
thebewilderness, despite all of that, owning land puts the landowner at an advantage over people who don’t own a home. We can talk about scenarios in which landowners lose their property all day, but the fact remains that owning it is an advantage. I mean, my point wasn’t “landowners never lose their land!” for fuck’s sake.
And, also, retirement! Retirement!
My nearly 80-year-old grandmother still works every single weekday and most holidays cooking and cleaning for white folks. To this day. With no retirement in sight. So, honestly,I’m not going to be wasting my tears crying any river for people who had enough at any point to not only buy a house, but to also feel secure for even a second quitting their jobs and resting on their savings.
I’m beginning to think Heart/Co don’t know any truly (rather than quaintly or piously; there is a difference) poor people. I mean, if land is such an albatross about one’s neck, then I would think they’d all be casting it off gladly, no? Why should it get to the point where it’s being pried out of the hands of people who can no longer afford taxes?
Well, because even in the direst of straits, there’s something to owning land in these male supremacist circumstances. A certain elevation above, a certain crumb of status.
It’d be nice if the materially “blessed” among us wouldn’t lap at their crumbs so obliviously as to not recognize or acknowledge other women’s lack. That’s all. No one wants your bone.
Yes, Margaret, if she can sell the property. In this economy a lot of people cannot afford to buy. There are houses in my neighborhood which went unsold for a long time, whereas they used to sell rather fast. Then, after the sale, the land owning woman will more likely than not become a renter and will need to get a job before the money for the rent runs out! And she will have to pay the back taxes on the property, if there are any, from the money she gets from selling it.
Hey, that means she’s several steps ahead of many of the women she’s trying to upstand with her “divide” talk, though, doesn’t it? Did you have a point other than “Even Oprah could end up poor!” ?
“Some people seem to want the cake of mainstream approval while simultaneously consuming a “radical feminist” identity. Sorry, that’s just not how patriarchy rolls.”
Yep, there’s no sense ingratiating yourself to the imaginary good men out there. All you do is compromise yourself and never see the results anyway.
Oh gosh, I don’t think she has Oprah’s wealth, but yeah, owning land does provide a cushion which non-landowning women don’t have. Just not one that will last forever, in most cases (excluding the mega rich like Oprah!)
Branjor, your argument boils down to the fact that even landowners could end up homeless (which, yes, does include Oprah when you carry it to its logical conclusion). Well, yes, sure. But landownership has been and will continue to be a marker of class, regardless of the fact that it can be lost. I mean, damn, if you have to visit some Never-Never Land where Heart has already lost her land and is scrambling for a job (thought she had one already?) to pay back-taxes on it, in order to counter my point, you might want to consider that it’s not worth countering.
Wow, that must be some good kool-aid. When are you going to get that kind, Margaret & Kitty?
LOL. Amy, I don’t think we’ll ever serve the kind of koolaid that inspires our readers to go bend themselves into pretzels trying to defend what we’ve said.
I also think it’s funny that Heart & Co. seem to be under the delusion that just because *they* don’t know who I am in real life, or who any number of other anonymously writing women are, that no one does. LOL. There are *plenty* of women online, reading my blog, who know exactly who I am in real life, and yet here I am still saying the same things I’ve been saying. I get the feeling that folks believe that if a single soul knew who I was in real life, I’d stop saying that I fully support and admire the course of action chosen by those women in PNG, for example (what do you want to bet that’s the “violence” Heart was opposing). Well, they should all rest easy now, knowing that I wouldn’t, since people already *do* know who I am, and I said it anyway.
Polly Styrene, critiquing someone’s ANALYSIS is not attacking them. My point, here, is that, among other things, Heart’s analysis (that anonymous writers are “toxic”) is CLASSIST. It’s not an attack on her as a person.
Would that she had a coherent critique of my ANALYSIS (or anyone else’s) instead of just a critique of the fact that some women write anonymously.
Still smarting because your own ANALYSIS of that “contaminated” situation was flawed, I see.
Dear Polly,
Why?
Why keep coming over here trying to “win?” No one is bothering with you, no one is playing the we win you lose best four out of seven with you. Don’t you get it? Your face has been cracked. We have been trying to give you time to recover, pick up the pieces of your face, glue them back together again and allow time for it to dry. But no, no, you still come. You have resorted to the same technique that Heart employs, which is what makes Heart so fucking dishonest, and that is you contort yourself simply to oppose someone you don’t like. Honestly, grow up. You claim you will not tolerate classism, but, lo and behold you are tolerating classism. Granted it is not happening on your blog per se, but it is happening right now on Heart’s, the very person’s blog that you plucked up enough cheek to come over here and attempt (although feebly) to save from us evil ol’ mean women-first-feminists. If you don’t know what I mean, read what the fuck Satsuma is spewing over there. She spews that shit at Heart’s because Heart allows it. She always has. That is why I told Heart to fuck off. Because sorry, if a person can be a classist they most certainly can and in my opinion is a racist and a sexist. It is almost impossible not to be one in the same. Polly, please, just step away from the dishonesty.
As a public service, I will show you and anyone else interested Satsuma’s disdain for people she deems below her in class. It is in her words. One simply has to read!
And, just to show you what reasoned, mature acceptance of critiques of our analyses looks like, I’ll point you to a thread at Amy’s wherein I ceded to Amy’s point about the use of the word “crazy.” And here’s another thread at Undercover Punk’s where I critiqued her analysis of sex/gender.
Amazing, isn’t it? Neither Undercover Punk nor I ran about screaming bloody hell that we’d been “attacked.”
Dunno wimms, tiz shaping up to be a bit of point-scoring blog war of some kind. *trying real hard not to finger waggle!*
Either ignore Polly’s comment, or publish it (and respond), rather than *this*. *This* just seems, silly at best, power-tripping at worst. Whilst I am still disappointed that Polly has not retracted the support for ‘contaminated-gate’, I don’t think she deserves the Grade-A Troll treatment either.
As for the response to Heart’s post, which I think was primarily directed at me from private threads, I just let it roll off a duck’s back. She is the moral Den Mother, but me being just a few years younger than she is, don’t feel the need for one. Although being *told* that one cannot even discuss and explore issues is wrong. That is our “job description” as radfems, to discuss and explore avenues, not to have them cut off in their prime before exploration has been completed.
But I will say that Heart’s post on her blog was a flimsy excuse to tie in two relatively unrelated things, and was indeed a passive dig at others that disagreed with her.
Having said that, she does write some very good posts, including the obit to Farrah Fawcett.
But Kitty, OMG, why did you direct ANYONE to read Satsuma’s posts!
I tried, I really tried, but needed a cattle prod to stay awake. I had to skim.
Stormy, I wish Polly would just stay away for awhile. No one here wants to hurt or be mean to Polly. We are telling her, and have been telling her, that she needs to just stay away for awhile. Period. She needs to stop with the little fucking digs. No one wants to fight with Polly. It is that simple.
I hope so.
This is difficult for me, because I want to ‘patch’ things up with her, but hesitate because of the contaminated fiasco. Because at the core of it, no female is better than any other female. To try and put a few females above all others (just because they decided they didn’t like males or preferred females as sexual partners at an early age) is counterproductive. From where I sit, any female who has the conviction to feminism to be even a political lesbian, has made the correct political choice and is not “less than” just because she either is not sexually attracted to women nor previously attracted to menz. I still don’t think that females currently in het relationships are a write-off either, just that they haven’t come to their gawd-damn senses yet!
Any way you cut it, women’s previous or current involvement with menz does not make them contaminated, for that is victim-blaming. We want to get MORE females onto Team Feminist, not less.
Yeah, exactly.
The following are Satsumaisms extracted from the big pile of poop she left in the thread that Heart is trying to convince everyone she is a good woman martyr over anyone who posts anonymously.
The block quotes are Satsuma’s
See, Satsuma don’t believe feminists take issue with patriarchy, —being oppressed, subjugated or exploited, no, a feminist’s anger is all about her personal failure. And not just personal failure, financial failure. In other words, if you don’t have or pursue money, money, money, you are a loser. That’s what upward mobility people, white middle class, and the rich think of the poor and/or people who don’t hold the same values. They don’t give one iota that they are rich or moving up at YOUR (or some other woman’s) expense.
I don’t even know what that means. Does Heart have a business page on her blog? Or is Satsuma saying she does not read women on business pages, you know, the very women that she identifies with, but instead prefers to brow beat feminists who usually say very little on their individual blogs about how to exploit other women for money?
“Why don’t you women talk about money more often, I ain’t got time for oppression. Don’t believe me, just wait until you read my next sentences.”
In other words, men oppress women, that is what they do, “so why don’t you women get in on some of the action and make some cash.” She claims she is not indifferent to prostitution and pornography and does not deal with it in real life, but she is indifferent to it. Has she ever, EVER stated on-line (since she admits she does nothing about it in real life) that she is against pornography and prostitution? Or has she ever discussed it in a way that one would conclude that it concerns her? No, she has not. Therefore, yes, yes she is indifferent to what many women suffer in this world.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Sexism just around the corner from classism. What does how women today dress have anything what so fucking ever to do with anything but SLUT-SHAMING! Making women feel wrong. Making women feel ashamed. Elevating herself over other women. Does she mean how women dress at work? If so, what about a Satsuma blog with tips on how women should dress when they are exploiting other women?
Here, I really really want to go into a discussion on the nuances vs. monumental differences between the words, –repress(ed), suppress(ed), and oppress(ed), but I think it would be almost pointless. By saying women suppress vs. saying women repress, is saying that women oppress themselves. Although suppress can be utilized in either direction as in one can suppress, but most often the individual represses (psychologically, out of a need to cope) whereas powerful institutions suppress (out of a need to dominate) individuals (and classes of people, such as the class woman), thus oppresses. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip. To me, it shows what she feels about women, and that is everything that happens to a woman is that woman’s fault.
“Blah blah blah, I could not wait to get my hands on some wealth of my own.”
“Blah blah blah, I value money and if you dont’ have any (or very little) it is all your fault. So stop hatin’ you contaminated cuntalinas!”
This I have to agree. Heart made a business out of exploiting women. She preached on the pulpit how women should submit to their husbands and have loads and loads of children. She made money off of giving tips on how a woman of fifty children can eat off $100 a month, and have money left over to pay her magazine subscription. Then when those fundies held her to the tenets of their fundamentalism (no cheating and stick with your husband whether he beats the fuck out of you or not) and threw her out because she cheated on her husband, she sued successfully. Yes, it is a patriarchal accomplishment to convince a patriarchal court that you are entitled to the proceeds of the exploitation of women that you orchestrated. Of course the court sides with such people. It is normally women who do not exploit others, who the courts don’t side with. Like, duh!
What the fuck is she even fucking talking about? There is no fuck in money, unless of course one is fucking exploiting a woman for some fucking money, then, it is fucking a-okay!
“Yall are fucking buzzkillers. Where are the feminist Alex Keatons of the world? Stop pointing out how I lubs me some classism. It is like totally deflating my ego.”
That is nothing but a contradiction of what she said just a few sentences before.
“All women, but me, are failures, —and it is their own damn fault!”
Yes or no, does this sound like old white men waxing poetic about yesteryear, you know, when black folks knew their place.
Again, more of the nostalgic white man sitting on the porch sipping lemonade shit. In addition to sounding like what a son expects from his mommy.
Sounds sweet. How is Satsuma paying that woman’s memory back? By not fucking caring about women and calling most women failures.
I don’t even know what she is saying. But I do know, it does not concern her, because remember, she is indifferent to pornography and prostitution.
“Get together in real life and collect money for pyramid schemes.”
I can’t keep on, it is just more gibberish going in circles that basically end up with the concept that you contaminated cuntalinas need to stop whining and make some money!
And Heart allows it. Because Heart does not care about anyone or anything but herself. If she needs foot soldier numbers, it does not matter if those foot soldiers are spewing sexism, racism, and classism, it does not matter. Yet, we are to believe and make concession for and ignore this type of bullshit.
ZMOG Kitty, you made me re-live it! Bad Kitty Bad.
“indifferent to pornstitution” what a fuckin’ cop out. OMG, I said the F word, Satsuma won’t read my words now … *scheduling in crying between corporate take-overs*
Actually, it was because of satsuma that I stopped being a regular reader of Heart’s blog. At the outset I voiced my objection to her dissing on het women (and I guess the underlying thing was because lesbians were some kind of uber-feminist).
Being a lesbian does NOT automatically make one a feminist. There are plenty of male-identified dykes about.
I mean, why, why, why would a feminist let that kind of garbage (her words, not her person) in their space? Why? Why? Why?
Kitty, darling, that should be a post all on its own.
Here’s a little piece of classism that Satsuma gave me for my very own:
But I don’t think Twisty’s cigars and brandy should be attacked! That’s going too far
If I can’t have a cigar and brandy I aitn’t gonna dance at the revolution… 
I think you’ve used that Emma quote too.
The mind boggles. Emma Goldman is spinnin’ in her grave like a rotisserie chicken at that, and man, if she could come back from the grave she’d kick Satsuma’s ass for her six ways from Sunday for that.
But generally, Satsuma is all over the map, seeking out whatever she can think up today that will stir shit up the most. If you ask me, we’re all better off just ignoring her ass and not taking her stupid bait, because she just delights in fomenting conflict between women by making invidious comparisons. Just like someone else we know.
The loss of polly still hurts though.
Yeah, Twisty always annoyed me with her posts of restaurant dining. Most of us cannot afford to eat out (let alone eat!), throw in brandy and cigars!
Amy, I hope that there is no “loss of polly”. I just wish she would change her thinking, or apologise, or something. Not continue to try to hold the ‘losing’ position. I mean losing as in not defendable.
It is surely better to admit that one is wrong on that RARE occasion, than to continue to prove, well nothing really.
Me too. Because what exactly is it that we (here at this blog) suppose to do? Say we were wrong when we know that we were right. Then, when/if we ever respond to anything or discuss it again, it is framed as continuing a blog war, winning, or wanting to win, abusing, crowing, being the queen of feminism, wanting to be the queen of feminism, wanting power, being the word police, or fill in the blanks. And, we are made out to be hostile if/when we do ignore it. Therefore, we are made out to be hostile if we discuss it; we are made out to be hostile if we ignore it. Sometimes a concept and/or position are simply wrong. That is all there is to it. And if a person wants to reopen engagement, they will have to say they were wrong, or at the very least stop antagonizing the people who opposed their wrong position. Because at this stage of life (I am now talking just for me), I have compromised my principles too many times in the name of getting along, or in the name of not being abused, or in the name of not being called a bad woman. No more. That method has not worked. It is time to no longer enable anti-feminism.
I’ll second this. Damn straight, Kitty.
And, yeah, you ought to make a post out of that Satsuma fisk.
Stormy, I’m going to have to agree with Kitty about Polly, too. I accidentally deleted Polly’s comment, but it didn’t add anything substantive to the discussion and was basically just an admonition to stop “attacking” Heart. I don’t have time for that. It’s dishonest. When/if Polly has something to say that isn’t irrelevant or disingenuous, you can rest assured that her comment(s) will be welcome. Until then, I’m at no obligation to publish finger-wagging from women who don’t now and ostensibly never did consider themselves feminists.
Yeah, see, this right here is what I’m talking about:
Doesn’t add a thing to the discussion.
I will say that I personally am not waiting on Polly for a *thing*. She can either leave comments worth letting through, or she can continue on this path. And I’ll either respond or not respond as my mood suits.
I do still want to see it “for real”, from her fingers, that she STILL thinks that any female that has had PIV with a manz is ‘contaminated’. And that she still thinks she has nothing to apologise for, or this is still her primary thinking.
Stormy,
You can always ask her. By email or on her blog. My bet is that she will never give you a direct answer, only rhetoric and pomposity.
We got the answer.
Polly and SheilaG get gold stars, and most of the female population of the world are contaminated.
She is one to talk of logic though. No one said that GSLs HAD TO sleep with ex-hets. No one denied that there is a different life experience for a GSL. No one said GSLs couldn’t have their own separate spaces if they wanted them.
People did say that it wasn’t right to call other women contaminated. People did question the validity of the term GSL (as in being a superior female to the rest of the female population). Or a that GSL is meant to be some sort of superior feminist.
Heart seems to go with “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Wake up Heart, Polly thinks you are contaminated. Along with the rest of us.
The personal bit that Polly so graciously referred to publicly, from a private conversation, was that an ex-gf of about a year, broke up with me saying “you will never be one of us” (refering to her GSL buddy that was beside her). So you can imagine the sense of betrayal that I had seeings she did not bring this little ‘detail’ up like about a year earlier. My GSL ex actually voluntarily slept with a manz once to try it out. So GS she weren’t either, even though she thought of herself as one.
Anyway, at least we know Polly can’t be trusted around private conversations.
I agree with the analyses here, Kitty, Margaret, stormy, and I am STILL sorry for everyone’s/anyone’s hurt.
She really ripped into you Amy. I didn’t read it all.
I didn’t read it stormy, just heard about it from Kya. I’m sure people think I am just being a sentimental ass to keep saying this, but I do just really feel regretful about the whole thing, including my part in all of it. It seems so unnecessary.
This whole “attacking Heart” thing is a laugh and a half. She makes a career out of attacking other feminists that she sees as a threat to her title of Best Feminist EVAR™ — half the time in private where she (thinks she) can’t be called on it — and no one is supposed to be pissed about that or defend themselves from it?
That’ll be the freaking day. If Heart would just get on about her faux-lesbian feminist-lite bidness and stop trying to make herself out to be better than everyone else, she and her six readers could have a great time diddling themselves with their equality/cultural feminism, and the rest of us would treat her as the irrelevance that she is. SHE’S the one constantly on the offensive, and her sycophants make the rounds trying to shame us all into not talking about how bad her ideas are for women. And the result, as you can see, is COMPLETELY the opposite.
You want the shit to stop, Heart, YOU stop it. Just stop it.
Yep, this right here. We’re not allowed to say, hey, that’s a male supremacist and/or classist and/or racist, what have you, thing you just wrote, without Heart and Co getting all up in arms about how somebody’s trying to unseat her. Well, whatever throne it is she’s sitting on I’m not interested in occupying. And it’s not as if I could even if I did. I don’t like males, babies included; I don’t think religion can be re-purposed to serve feminist ends; I don’t think white women marrying black men is in any way revolutionary or woman-centered; and I don’t think biting my tongue in order to maintain unspoken hierarchies is conducive of genuine, respectful interactions. It seems obvious that our two standpoints should be able to coexist with little to no cause for confrontation. It’s not as if we are writing for the same crowd, here.
Hee, Kya’s reading over at Heart’s right now, and someone has just given Satsuma the perfect new moniker: Hierarchical, Rigid, and Strange. Isn’t it just about time she took on a new identity? Personally I think H-R&S suits her fine.
More like a RASH! Rigid, and Strange, Hierarchical.
Worse than poison oak, poison ivy, and sumac combined. And the rash keeps coming back. You think the urushiol is out of your clothes after you wash, but it is not. So you wash and wash again, and wait. The rash comes again, and again, and again. Six months later, you pull on a pair of boots, damn, the Rash is there, between your toes.
Kitty, that’s perfect. Beautiful.
Heart has a real victim complex. If a woman writes under different screen names, and she’s one of Heart’s racist friends, it’s oh, how wonderful that you’re starting anew and laying to rest that old name. But if someone she doesn’t like does it, it’s all about how that woman is out to persecute her.
I get so sick and tired of the benefit of the doubt only being given when she feels warm and fuzzy about a woman. The reasons a woman might write under an alias in the first place are exactly the same reasons she might change that name when the need, or suspicion of the need, arises.
How sinister indeed.
Stop inventing boogie men out of nothing. And please let go of the martyr complex.
Yeah because in Heartland, it is Heart all the time, 24/7. To think a feminist who doesn’t dig Heart’s constructed narrative thinks about Heart before she does anything is really what? A God Complex?
Then again, we are talking about a person who threw Biting Beaver under the bus.
I mean honestly, what type of feminist would throw Biting Beaver under the bus?
My name is Eleanor K. Glendower. Don’t believe me, then prove otherwise. Show us how you plan on proving otherwise. Put it out there. Prove to the world what you are willing to do to continue your martyr complex. Please do. Because unlike you, I have nothing invested in appearing as a good woman. Nothing.
Because here is a clue, (Obama’s team already knows the deal). A person can take cash to their bank or any bank really, and buy a visa card. It is a pre-paid visa card. This is recommended if you want to give money over the net and not give your real name. Now the FBI and such could go to your bank or the bank you purchased the card and get video and use other methods to figure out who purchased the card, but really, does some loser on the net have that capablility. No, instead, they will think they know your name because you gave them money once. They will cling on to the names, because like a list of magazine subscribers, names are a useful tool for manipulation, and squeezing out more money.
I did use one name on the internet once that was a combination of a nickname and a former husband’s last name. And once I used another husband’s last name with a diminutive form of the first nickname. Even with all of those cloak and dagger maneuvers, a man, a man who I never met in my life had an agency track me down under the pretense of being concern about me. And since I have been using my name Eleanor K. Glendower, another man, a man from 1987 who stalked me then, started stalking me again last year. I’m not talking internet stalking either. Luckily for me, by leaving his state of residence, he violated his parole and is now back in prison. But I don’t need to cry all of my woes to women and ask for money to get over my woes. I need to do somethig so it will not happen to other women. And that is allowing her women to blog under whatever fucking name she wants to.
So you see, I would never in a million years write a post, an unprovoked post about how I am superior to other women because I use my real name on the internet and they do not. Because, as a feminist, a real feminist, I understand that women have their reasons.
Nevertheless as I said before, for all of you women who have been too chickenshit to speak up at Rain’s, it is just a matter of time before it is your turn. The only way you will never have a turn is if you forever keep your opinions to yourself. And we all know keeping opinions to yourself is the very first tenet of radical feminism.
Kitty, I’m sorry to inform you that you don’t even have ONE mention on the first page of results of googling your name.
Unlike some people.
That first link provokes many questions:
a) Do you think Heart no longer speaks and makes money on the Christian-Fundamentalist circuit because?
1. She became a feminist
2. She cheated on her husband.
b) Do you think the church wanted to take Heart’s magazine (in which she was giving tips to other fundamentalist women on how to be good fundamentalist women) away because?
1. She became a feminist
2. She cheated on her husband
c) Do you think Heart hoped the church would excuse her adultery because?
1. The Christian Fundamentalist church is known for compassion.
2. Her adulterous partner was white, whereas her husband was black.
3. The rules do not apply to her.
4. Both 2 & 3
d) Do you think Heart, on her blog and in comments at other places frames her exit with the church as:
1. She left the Quiverfull Cult for feminist reasons.
2. They kicked her out because she cheated on her husband.
e) Do you think Heart would have continued with the fundamentalist church (preaching on the pulpit that women should submit to their husbands and have as many children as their body can have) if they had allowed her to divorce the black husband and marry her white adulterous lover without consequences?
1. No
2. Yes
f) Do you think Heart underestimated the value the church placed on men (black or white, abusive or not) compared to her advocacy for fundamentalist complicity?
1. No
2. Yes
g) In Heart’s vast internet rambling attempts at proving she is a good woman, have you ever read where she has apologized and expressed remorse for advocating the life-long subjugation of millions of women?
1. Yes
2. No
h) Or does it seems that Heart attempts to re-purpose fundamentalism to suit a perception of feminism.
1. Yes it does.
2. No it does not.
And a final question: Would we even be having this conversation if Heart did not go around writing posts about who are bad feminist bloggers and who are good (herself, and the people who she did not ask permission to include in her bullshit) bloggers and disrupting private boards with her finger wagging, which incidentally she never wags when the woman being discussed is someone who she cannot stand. When it is a woman she cannot stand, then it is no holds barred. If she did not go out of her way to carved out a great divide between people, then people could exist beside each other without note, would we even care what she had to say?
Actually, let me elaborate on the links I dropped above, because despite the times that Heart has trashed me, I’d still like to be as fair to her as I can be.
1. This link demonstrates (if you can get through it without developing narcolepsy) that neither Heart’s leaving fundamentalism nor her lawsuit against the religious right had anything to do with feminism, Heart’s or anybody else’s. She cheated on her husband. The fundies aren’t down with that. They kicked her out for a hypocrite and tried to steal her preaching business. She sued them and won because patriarchy respects private property, contracts, and such forth. End of story.
2. This link makes some points I find valid and some I don’t.
a. I think everything that is said here about Heart’s past affiliations and subsequent behavior ought to be carefully considered by anyone who calls herself a radical feminist. More specifically, I do think Heart’s thinking, and the behavior it motivates, is stuck in a hierarchical, binary, good vs bad dynamic that is left over from her fundamentalist loyalty, AND (since that can happen to anyone) that she is not interested in moving on from this mindset despite all kinds of “encouragement” to do so.
b. I do think that Heart cannot brook disagreement, particularly when it concerns issues that affect her own life. I have a hard time with this myself, but what I don’t do is trash people who criticize me simply for having a different opinion.
c. I DO NOT think that Heart opposes civil rights for ’sex workers’ or transpeople. I think most radical feminists find arguments in support of legalizing prostitution to be reformist, which they are, as well as centered on variously privileged Western women. The radical feminist position is that legalization and related tactics are not going to END prostitution, let alone the sexual exploitation of women, globally. And that’s our goal — ending prostitution, not making it a little cushier for the people who say they like it. (We’re also, BTW, interested in ending all forms of capitalist exploitation, including factory work and agricultural labor as they are currently organized. Anyone not on board with this is NOT a radical feminist — SATSUMA.)
Many radical feminists are not interested in having discussions about reformist tactics WRT prostitution, or about how great is transgendering, NOT because we don’t like arguing or discussion (I think a bunch of us prove that to be a great big myth every day) or because we don’t want to hear people’s experiences, but because we’ve heard all the arguments and we don’t agree with them. So what exactly is supposed to come out of further wrangling?
3. Same as #2.
a. I don’t understand Heart’s entitlement in thinking it’s okay to solicit money from women who have way less than she does, to go on what is essentially a big expensive vacation (twice within two months). This critique is valid, IMO. If I were short a thousand dollars to get to fest, I think I’d probably donate what I did have to the scholarship fund and stay home. In fact, I haven’t been able to afford to go to fest, even if I wanted to, since 2004. So yeah, that incident rankled with me too.
b. The comment that this blogger is objecting to WAS ableist. Heart can be patronizing, related to 2a above.
c. I think the reason why this blogger’s age was relevant is that the transperson in question had a history of preying emotionally and sexually on young(er) lesbians. I know two women personally that this happened to, and a third by reputation. So I think some of Heart’s behavior in this case may have actually been motivated by concern about this blogger’s safety. I think Heart phrased it wrongly, and handled the whole situation horribly, but I don’t think her motives were quite as awful as that blogger portrays them in the third link.
I like to think of myself as a kind person, and I like having productive discussions or, failing that, to have fun. Not everyone likes me or what I write, and I don’t generally see the point of chasing around the internet trying to convince people who disagree with me of how wrong, bad, and mean they are.
I haven’t said very much about this situation before, beyond disagreeing with certain points that Heart made. But honestly, I’m fed up. I’ve watched these narcissistic tantrums go down in real life as well as online, and I’m tired of women getting trashed because they had the temerity to have a different opinion or to refuse to kiss Heart’s constantly-in-need-of-kissing ass. She’s done it to me twice and I’ve watched it happen to I can’t even count how many other women, and I’m done watching it without speaking up. If we all spoke up when someone acted like this — if we refused that person support until she learned to disagree respectfully, take responsibility for herself and her choices, not pick fights, and not play the eternal victim — then these behaviors would not persist in our communities. None of us is going to achieve revolution alone. Feminism is fundamentally collective; its theories are formed from the collective experiences of women, not from the whim du jour of any one woman who’s convinced herself she’s the most oppressed EVAR (or, like some of Heart’s other critics, that she’s NOT oppressed AT ALL!!!!). Anyone who’s so committed to her rugged individuality that she has to let everyone know she “doesn’t toe any party lines!” or “doesn’t respect lines drawn in the sand!” is not cut out for building a feminist movement. Because none of us is infallible, and none of us is capable of seeing all the angles. We need each other’s support, presence, and insight, even when we disagree. What we decidedly don’t need are any more stars and darlings who aspire to nothing less than Queen Bee of whatever ideology they are currently espousing.
Feminists have a lot of problems, there are tons of forces arrayed against us and our attempts to rebuild a movement, but THIS problem is one that we could do something about, if we could only find the will to do it.
And there’s my $25 on the subject. Hopefully I won’t feel compelled to participate in any more of this, having said my long and toothsome piece. But I also know that I am DONE standing by and watching in silence while other women are unfairly attacked and accused and situations get twisted so that the same person is ever and always the victim.
You seem to have a fair (as in reasoned) analysis there Amy. Admittedly, the naughty side of me did laugh at Kitty’s “questions”, but you all knew I was evol.
Heart’s politics always come across to me as being very conservative, and it would appear that the fundie influence has not left her, even though she left it. Her advice seems to mirror her own life choices, like “if you get shafted in business; sue” and “if your husband beats you, get a restraining order”. Both these bits of advice are reliant on (men’s) laws and legal system, and the truth is, that for the majority of women who try these avenues, there is failure. So sure, it might work as a non-violent solution for a tiny minority of women, the rest aren’t so lucky.
Radical feminism is about seeking solutions for the majority of women, not just a lucky minority. We have that in place already, and these few examples of luck are held up to women as “see, women get justice”.
I just wanted to elaborate on one of your parentheticals, Amy:
This doesn’t mean that radical feminists are interested in freeing men from capitalist exploitation. What it means is that the entire system of capitalism is based on the sexual/reproductive/domestic enslavement and exploitation of female human beings. It means that freeing women from this slavery would cause the simultaneous collapse of the system.
But it does not mean that men would benefit from this. They wouldn’t. They benefit from the way things are now. They *would* be free from capitalism, assuming they’re there
, but it wouldn’t be to their benefit. Just wanted to clarify that for me anyway Amy’s statement isn’t some “free all the men and the women from capitalism, yay!” equality feminist bullshit. I’m thinking it’s not for her either.
Yeah, Betsy Brown, in this article, says:
That’s kind of how I feel about it. Capitalist exploitation hurts women first and most, globally speaking. That’s why it’s unbelievably hypocritical for some women to speak of themselves as “feminists” when they remain willfully ignorant about the global exploitation of (mostly not-white) women in the service of their privileged western lifestyles.
And the only reason I brought it up in the first place was because the pro-prostitution crowd loves to talk about how prostitution isn’t any worse than factory work etc., as evidenced in one of Daisy’s posts linked to from the post I linked to above (if that makes any sense). I just wanted it to be clear that my/our opposition to prostitution has nothing to do with thinking that other forms of the exploitation of labor are fine and dandy.
Oh, see, I think what I’m saying is different from what you’re quoting. I mean, if I thought ending capitalism would benefit men even indirectly, I guess I wouldn’t mind that. But, the fact of the matter is that I *don’t* think it would benefit men – who would lose women as mothers, wives, and prostitutes, which is the basis of male supremacy.
Ha, Kitty, we cross posted. No, I wouldn’t be wasting my time like this if I wasn’t sick and tired of seeing her do this over and over again. It’s time for those of us who see it for what it is stand up and be counted.
I wrote a comment in here, but something strange happened when I submitted it and I think it’s lost in the ether.
I’m sorry melim. I checked and there are no stray comments. I don’t know what could’ve happened.
NP, Kitty. I think I remembered most of it!
Ok, that went through, so I’ll try to remember what I wrote.
All I know is that I was supremely uncomfortable during the short time I participated on heart’s blog and boards. There always seemed to be– and reading what y’all have written here, I see that I wasn’t mistaken– some crap going on behind the scenes. A lot of what went on for all to see rankled as well, but it took me a while to put enough together to see what she was doing and realize I didn’t want any part of it. Y’all have filled a a lot of the pieces of the puzzle here, and I doubt I’m the only one who appreciates it.
Thanks, melim. Bottom line, I think that kind of behavior’s crappy, even when I do it. I don’t think what I did here is necessarily right or good or how I would generally want to handle things. But I just — get to a point with people where I can’t accept unfair tantrumy selfish self-serving behavior anymore, even if calling it out is, or seems, just as unfair. It’s kind of a weird paradox or act of hypocrisy, but I do hope that the outcome of this particular instance of it will turn out to be more productive than counterproductive.
But there’s the difference right there, Amy: you have an awareness and the ability to admit that your behavior may be crappy. (FTR, I haven’t seen you do or say anything I’d consider crappy, here or elsewhere.)
And, also, Amy, calling out someone’s shitty behavior is (a) not an attack, and (b) nothing at all like demonstrating and then defending the shitty behavior to begin with.
At the same time, of course, I don’t want anyone saying anything they’ll regret on my account. So, just wanted to put it out there that no one is obligated to agree with me about any of this; you’ll just have to have a better justification than “landowning privilege isn’t constant!” for doing so
Especially because plenty of the other privileges aren’t really constant either – like youth and employment.
But, yeah, thanks, melim, even though I’m never fishing for validation when I write, it’s nice sometimes to get it anyway. I hope you’re right, too, that there are more.
Oh, no Margaret, I totally agree with you on the landowning thing. I don’t understand that desire to claim, “Well, I COULD possibly at some point LOSE this particular privilege so that means I don’t really have it at all!” Not true. When I was renting an apartment with a dirtbag boyfriend who cheated me out of money, the eviction notice was on the door the day after he failed to deliver the rent check. I’ve never gone through foreclosure, but I’m sure that, living in a house that I am part owner of (even if not officially), it would take a heck of a lot longer than a day or a month for the sheriff to come throw my stuff in the street. (Our neighbor across the street has been talking about being in foreclosure for a year and a half.) And if we owned this house outright, with no mortgage payment, it would take even longer than THAT for the city to come after us for back taxes. So no, your original argument is spot on IMHO.
My angst is just about all the current drama, completely unrelated to your argument, and sorry to derail your thread with it.
Aw, Amy, I just wish that you weren’t hurting about this. Women need time to work the issue out; we will continue to have the same arguments and point out the same hypocrisies until we do. Moving on from the particular catylizing thread/blog/message board doesn’t mean that the issue is resolved. So, it’s not unexpected that further interaction carries with it the tension of unfinished business.
But, yeah, I knew a woman who was *buying* her house, didn’t even own it yet, and she lived in her house for 2 years almost to the day without paying a single cent on her mortgage. They did finally put her out, but 2 years mortgage-free. And, no, she isn’t even being sued for any back payments, although she is responsible for the taxes. Much as it’s a shame that she lost her home, she wasn’t standing on any precipice staring at the abyss when she missed her first mortgage payment.
I think they are a bit quicker to evict mortgage defaulters in the UK, usually starting the process at about three months, and I think they are out by six months.
Hey yall, just a message to say I appreciate this thread, and appreciate positive (if critical) commentary on what I wrote. We can disagree without turning into a goon squad! (i.e. see the guys at “Feminist Critics” for what I mean.) I know you all care about women and as one of my favorite sexist white men once said, “We always did feel the same/We just saw it from a different point of view”…
And lemme tellya. I date back from the legendary Ms board, where Heart was manipulative and shaming, the veritable Queen of the Mean Girls Clique. So I know what goes on and I know how it plays. In addition, the whole RainSong extravaganza was exacerbated by Heart having been her very close friend, with RS dutifully parroting all the right opinions and adding some gonzo ones of her own, and then being brazenly excommunicated after Wendy McElroy and Brenda (or somebody) outed her as trans. (This is why she followed Heart to the MWMF boards, too.) RS was already considered plenty obnoxious by many of the women at Ms. Thus, from what you are all saying in this thread, I have to say: I see a real pattern in the deification of Satsuma…Rainsong was also held up by Heart as politically the most right-on, with very similar politics too. (Is Satsuma who she says she is?) Then when all of Rainsong’s history was discovered, Heart had to do some serious back-pedaling, and suddenly RainSong was recast as a dangerous stalker. But RS even PMd me (she would PM anyone who would listen) about how much she loved Heart and needed to “do feminism” with Heart. (Can anyone say CO-DEPENDENT?)
Sorry folks, but I was there, and RS was UP HEART’S ASS bigtime. The power RS had at Ms was a lot due to Heart’s anointing of her as Proper Radfem. Then, the revisionism kicked in.
Take note of the Satsuma thing… I lay money on it being a similar situation, in which someone is not who they claim they are, or at least not in totality.
Thanks for listening. I am back to being grandma now: come on grandma, come onnnnnn! (((grandma purrs happily))) I rarely see her, so this week has been a treat. But terribly exhausting.
Why would you care if Heart and Rainsong were pals given that you’re a trans-lover and manz-lover, Daisy? I’d have thought that would have been right up your street.
The power Rainsong had at Ms was because he (that’s he, not she – don’t help to disguise men, it only gives them more opportunities to hurt women) was a fucking psycho stalker who got his claws into vulnerable women and lied about being a woman (the classic was when he claimed he could breast-feed). I don’t think you were even there, I certainly don’t remember you and your story about what happened at the Ms Boards is mainly bollocks. Second hand I’m guessing.
I don’t know, delphyne, maybe because it’s a hypocrisy – if that’s the way it happened? The same way that I can see that Heart running around on speaking tours and whatnot preaching the gospel on the lady-pulpit and in her magazine about submission to one’s husband in the name of the Lord, all while violating the bible’s tenets was hypocritical, despite the fact that I don’t personally care that she cheated on her husband.
The trans issue doesn’t have to be DaisyDeadhead’s issue in order for her to be able to see the hypocrisy in it.
Besides, all the revisionist accounts about other facets of Heart’s tale floating about – like the one she lets hang out there that her break from the fundamentalists was her own, feminist choice – I can’t put it past her to also revise the details of her relationship with transgendered males, as well.
So, if your comment was meant to imply that we all just need to give Heart the benefit of the doubt, or just take your word for it, about the RainSong stuff, then, I’m not sure what else it is you want us to take from it. Rest assured no such benefit of the doubt will be given, though.
* listening and learning *
Daisy, thank you for your perspective. I was not around during the Ms boards era so I didn’t know this bit, but from what I know of Heart’s subsequent behavior it seems quite plausible. And I do know a number of people who were taken in by Rainsong’s self-hating anti-trans rhetoric and were then quite surprised when that person turned out to actually BE a transperson. So, as usual, the truth is probably somewhere in between all the different accounts.
My comment wasn’t meant to imply anything Margaret. If I want to say something I’ll say it straight out. What I said to Daisy was that she is talking shit about what happened at the Ms Boards and I’m telling her I know that in order she is aware when she’s spouting her lies that there are people around who were actually there who will call her on it.
Although if you are talking about hypocrisy, you can’t get much more hypocritical than Daisy cosying up to straight down the line radical feminists, whose ideology she hates with a passion, just because she thinks there might be an opportunity to have a pop at Heart whom Daisy has been conducting a vendetta against ever since she first appeared trying to stir up trouble on radical feminist blogs 18 months ago or whatever it was.
Which isn’t to say that I’m on Heart’s side here, it means I believe in collective security for radical feminists so however much we disagree amongst each another, an attack from outside by an anti-rad fem is an attack on all of us. Politically it’s a huge mistake to allow our enemies to gain this kind of leverage.
Mind you I don’t know why you think you shouldn’t just take my word for it with regards to the lies Daisy is telling here. Seriously, me or Daisy? Yet you find Daisy more credible? I am actually struggling to understand that.
Delphyne, I don’t consider Heart a radical feminist, and if you do, then, we really aren’t the same kind of feminist, you and I. So, even if I did want blanket protection for all radical feminists, she wouldn’t qualify anyway. Plus, as far as I can tell, Daisy didn’t attack Heart; she simply noted a similarity between her perception of the treatment RS got from Heart and the treatment that Satsuma is getting from Heart now. How that’s an infiltration by “our” enemies, I don’t know. Daisy knows the pro-trans stuff isn’t welcome here, and so long as she is able to respect that, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be allowed to give her impressions of what happened with RainSong.
And, delphyne, it isn’t an issue of my finding Daisy *more* credible than you. I simply don’t find you *more* credible than she is when it comes to Heart, especially when you haven’t said anything to refute her points except “Nuh UH!”
I’m loyal only to my own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, delphyne, not to some thrown-together concept of a radical feminist that includes people who care more about animals than black women and/or circle the wagons to protect man-lovers, racists, and misogynists.
If Daisy is talking bollocks about Heart then that is most certainly is an attack on her.
I take your point about Heart’s politics but she’s a lot closer to being a radical feminist than Daisy is, and one of the reasons that she is attacked so comprehensively by people like Daisy is because it is certainly how our enemies (all enemies of radical feminists) perceive her.
I didn’t refute Daisy’s points because she’s just making stuff up, she’s obviously heard it second hand, and also because in doing so, I would add to the pile-on on Heart. But here’s one – after Lynne (that was his name then, not Rainsong) was outed, Heart stayed friends with Lynne and to and froed with him on the Ms Boards. She didn’t excommunicate him and she most certainly didn’t accuse him of being a stalker there, that happened later. And I believe she accused him later of being a stalker because he stalked her – just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean they didn’t get hurt and they made it up.
Anyway what has this got to do with anything. Why do any of you give a shit about something that happened back in 2002? And why on earth if you do, don’t you ask other radical feminists who were there, instead of some anti-rad fem with an axe to grind. So yes, I am offended that you find an anti-rad fem like Daisy more credible than me when it comes to Heart.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there *weren’t* any so-called radical feminists addressing the hypocrisy and misogyny of Heart’s ideology. They were all circling the wagons around her in the name of blanket protection. So, I’m not sure where it is you’re suggesting we should have gone, but as far as I can tell, Amy didn’t have a choice but to take the valid with the not-so-valid by seeking out writers like Daisy for a discussion of how Heart’s philosophy is detrimental to the radical feminism you claim to want to shield.
You certainly weren’t writing about it, so you shouldn’t be offended that I don’t value one 7-year-old tale over another 7-year-old tale, especially when both tales come from women who never comment here and who, in my opinion, have therefore both demonstrated themselves to have motives other than enriching the discussion.
You say that Heart remained friends with RS after he was outed, and this is the exact same point Daisy made – that she was a friend and backer to RS before and after he was outed – and that it was only later that the friend and backer stuff was erased from the narrative, and only the stalker stuff remained. That doesn’t mean I don’t think RS stalked her; I just think the stalking isn’t the whole story, and it isn’t.
There is no pile-on on Heart. When Heart stops running to private message boards to stir up shit and trouble; when Heart stops writing thinly veiled responses to my posts (like the animal one, for one example) in effort to strike up a competition where there need be none and set herself up as the “better” feminist; when Heart stops speaking for black women and girls (I personally speak *as* a black woman); when she stops framing man-loving as being radical feminism; when Heart stops setting up false, and sexist/classist/racist dichotomies, also in effort to set herself up as the “better” feminist – well, basically, when she stops picking squabbles with women who would rather forget people like her even exist, well, you won’t have to worry about me saying anything at all about Heart.
Daisy or no Daisy, where the hell were you Delphyne when Heart came to Rain’s (not the Rain of Rainsong, not that I know of) board talking shit, contorting, and wagging her finger when it came to what specific women said. Where were you Delphyne? Where were you Delphyne? And that fucking board was private. Private and you did not have the courage to speak up. Yet now, now when poor lying Heart, yes, lying, because she knows damn well she presents the narrative that she left that weirdo church because she became a feminist not because she cheated on her husband AND GOT KICKED OUT! Not to mention how she used that white husband of hers to monitor her boards. —so called radical feminist boards. A fucking white man. And it was not that long ago. During that 4chan attack it was her white husband who was moderating because she was too weak and fragile to see possible comments that included porn. The very porn that still infiltrates my email, an email that had not been soiled until her boards were attacked. Oh, God, Kitty is going in on the victim blaming, eh? We talked about male-fetuscide here. We have talked about MRAs and MTF here. We have not been attacked. I tell you why, Heart is “attacked” (more like criticized, exposed) because Heart is a lightening rod, and it is not because of her politics. Because, honestly, she has no politics. Her politics is Heart. Heart,–make money, be the queen, feel sorry, be the queen, make money, be the queen, etc———– SHE THREW BITING BEAVER UNDER THE BUS, FFS! If Biting Beaver can be thrown under the bus, then any feminist can be thrown under the bus. The very woman who had to actually deal with people finding out her name, address, children’s name, calling CPS, etc. Heart has her 6 acres and its location to protect her. It is not as if someone can just walk in from the street and kick her door in. And Heart has that white husband (that the police will believe and serve responsibly) there, probably with his hunting rifle. Unlike what Biting Beaver had. What did she have? A little nasty ass boy who could not be distracted from his porn to see why the smoke detector was sounding. People take issue with Heart because decent human beings can sense, read, detect her destructive un-feminist bullshit.
Yeah, but, you know, whatever.
Where have you been Delphyne? Where have you been for Margie and I? Eh? No, it is not until a white middle class white woman self-appointed Mary Magdalene is no longer getting her ass kissed do you come out. Suddenly, you have courage! Courage to speak up publicly on Margie and Kitty’s blog. But on a private board, your choice was to remain silent. Well you know, we are not stupid. We see who comments at Daisy’s. We see how nasty some of those commenters have been to radical feminists. However, unlike you, we have no agenda or loyalty to center Heart 24/7 (an un-radical feminist), —but radical feminism.
Where were you for me, Delphyne, on Rain’s board?
Where were you Delphyne? I needed you.
Delphyne, I have always liked what you have to say. I know there are a lot of things I disagree with Daisy about and I HAVEN’T always liked how she’s handled herself. I wasn’t at the Ms Boards so I don’t know what went down but what she is saying here matches EXACTLY with how Heart has treated me and how I have watched her treat others. FTR, I think anyone could have been taken in by R; it’s one thing to admit that, and another to act like the alliance and whatnot never happened because of the subsequent discovery of R’s identity, which is what I understand Daisy to be saying.
And I found Daisy’s post about Heart’s unwillingness to be honest about the harm she caused to women very useful; I haven’t seen anyone else willing to discuss those issues in a feminist context (rather than in the context of a vendetta against Heart because of her opinions/politics/history). Daisy came here and commented because I placed a link to her, I think; to my knowledge she has never commented on “straight down the line radical feminist” blogs before, at least this one, mine, or the others that I read. Whereas, you haven’t been part of this conversation or commented here much at all before until you come blazing in and being really hostile. I’m not saying you don’t have your reasons, but you could perhaps understand why I might be a bit taken aback and surprised by that.
Thank you, Amy. That’s what I took from Daisy’s comment, too – NOT that RS wasn’t a lying asshole, but that Heart never says, “I was bamboozled.” Instead she erases that part of the story in order to focus SOLELY on the fact that RS was a liar.
Regardless of RS’s lies, if Heart was backing him, elevating him up above women, praising and deifying him, then she needs to admit that she did that. And, yes, she’s made these sorts of rearrangments of history with regard to plenty of women, so, it does seem plausible that she’d do it in this case.
God damn, Kitty, I am so sorry. I know so much what that feels like. I have needed delphyne, too. She chose Heart then, and she’s choosing her now.
I feel compelled to say this because it always bothers me when people insist that loyalty to other women who supposedly think like me should trump loyalty to principles: I do not consider non-radical feminists my enemies. I do not consider women who have different beliefs about men to be my enemies. Nor would it ever make sense to me to follow the “we have to present a united front with other women whose integrity we question and/or know is non-existent just because they also are against mandatory dick-sucking and someone who’s in favor of general dick-sucking is disagreeing with them” idea of “solidarity.”
I don’t have a history with any of the people in question on this thread – not Heart, not Satsuma, not Rainsong, not even with Daisy, give or take one time where we got shitty at each other over something I can’t even remember now. This comment is about the closing-ranks expectation and not about any specific person(s).
Because what I do have is a history of being in a family where “don’t make each other look bad” was presented as what love and loyalty mean, instead of as the means for control that it actually is. If you don’t want to look bad, don’t engage in nonsense. And since I can’t control – nor do I wish to – anyone else’s actions around the commission of nonsense, no one who commits such has a right to demand or even HOPE for me to go along with it, ignore it, or defend it.
If someone thinks something I’m doing is wrong, and they pretend otherwise just to stick it to someone else they don’t like who has noticed that I’m doing wrong, then what they are essentially doing is lying. I don’t want people to lie that on my behalf – it does nothing to free anybody from anything, and is in itself a kind of jailing. I don’t want to do it for other people, either. And the folks who make me feel the safest and most backed-up, frankly, are those who would never think of doing it for me or asking it from me either.
Right my last paragraph on that other post was somewhat aggressive. I don’t want to fall out with any of the three of you. I meant what I said before about this blog’s unalloyed radical feminism being wonderful.
I took issue with Daisy because she’s a liar and maybe the Ms Boards is a bit of a hot button for me because some of it was quite horrible (it’s great being in a feminist forum where a MTF trans is claiming he can breastfeed and a bunch of people will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you dare to disagree, so you don’t). That isn’t to imply that the experiences or impressions that any of the three of you have had of Heart are incorrect or to be argued with. I just don’t think you need Daisy to back you up because she obviously doesn’t know this stuff first hand and I do feel that she has an agenda that will never work in our favour.
There larger context that I’ve seen of Heart being attacked on the internet from many different quarters – both feminist and anti-feminist – that means that I do back away from stuff like this because how much criticism does one person, especially a woman, need?, and also the All Heart All the Time stuff isn’t something that I can understand or really want to be a part of, even though I appear to have ended up managing it here.
And I don’t have any loyalty to Heart, and I’ve never chosen Heart, I’ve always kept my distance, apart from one time which didn’t work out, so I’m not sure where that is coming from except I think I can’t be being very clear about where I stand.
You know, the fact that you see this overwhelmingly as a criticism of HEART, and not as a setting of boundaries in favor of the integrity and continued progression of the radical feminism you keep claiming to care about is evidence to me that your words don’t mean anything. This is not, fundamentally, about HEART as a woman. It is about Heart’s co-optation and dilution of radical feminism to her own material and social ends. THAT is where the danger to radical feminism is – in the fact that she, and all her hypocrisies and hubris and jockeying for power and absolute refusal to consider that she might learn from someone lower than her on *any* hierarchy, including the ones she has erected in her own honor, is so closely associated with what is supposed to be our ideology. THAT is what you should be protecting. And instead you’re protecting Heart.
Like Amy said, if nobody tolerated this bullshit, it would never get to the point where it’s “Heart all the time.” Those of us who cared about radical feminism would walk away. Instead, those of us trying to rid ourselves of these cancers on the ideology – these man-lovers and capitalists and racists – are the ones seen as damaging the unity. Which is why, like I said, no woman has my loyalty. And I’m glad to have women around me who don’t need it to feel safe and welcome here.
Margie: “THAT is where the danger to radical feminism is – in the fact that she, and all her hypocrisies and hubris and jockeying for power and absolute refusal to consider that she might learn from someone lower than her on *any* hierarchy, including the ones she has erected in her own honor, is so closely associated with what is supposed to be our ideology.”
YES, that is EXACTLY it!! Whew.
Delphyne, I was Scarlet Begonias and China Cat Sunflower on the Ms boards. The single name “Daisy” was in use by someone else, and she was an active board member. People have confused us. (I used Scarlet after the infamous board crash.) I remember you very well from Ms.
What exactly have I said that was a lie? These are my observations, my opinions of what I saw. I didn’t post much, I was very intimidated by the internet in those days. And on Ms in particular, everyone seemed so highly educated.
How can I hate it, when I AM a radical feminist? I first called myself “radical feminist” at age 15, in 1972. So you must be referring to someone else.
((shivers))) Deju Vu all over again. I used to get called another kind of lover, by my father…
You might want to watch that kind of language. It’s very triggering.
Thank you, everyone else, for your hospitality.
As female people, to say “trans-lover,” given we are only ever talking about male transgendereds with that term, it is not at all like a white man calling his white daughter a “nigger-lover.” So, you’ll have to knock off the offensive white people:black people::female people:male people analogies.
Where the fuck does this unity stuff come from? It’s in your head. You’re right you can’t damage radical feminist unity, neither can Heart, neither can anybody.
I said it wasn’t a good idea to listen to Daisy because that does undermine radical feminist politics. She has an agenda to shut all of us down, not just Heart who she is firing on, but you, me, everybody. If all you can see from that is ME DEFENDING HEART I can’t help you.
I’ve given you advice, ignore Heart. It’s what I do most of the time. If you think that responding to preposterous posts about how non-anonymous bloggers are better than anonymous bloggers then I can’t help you. But you know, maybe you’re right. Time will tell how much radical feminsm has improved after you spend your energies in removing Heart from radical feminism.
YOU! YOU’RE the one talking about how “WE” just need to stick together and not let Daisy in!
Please don’t do the revisionist shit, delphyne.
Allow me to translate:
“*I’M not bothered by all of Heart’s racist, classist sexism. It doesn’t affect ME, so why should anyone else care what NONWHITE NONRELIGIOUS and/or POOR-BECAUSE-THEY-HAD-TO-BE-NOT-BECAUSE-THEY-FOUND-GOD women might think of her being the poster child for the so-called radical feminist ideology!”
Yeah right. I’m not going to ignore it; the women I care about can’t ignore it. And I know this because I have been approached by women concerned about being seen as racists, for example, for beginning to see from a radical feminist perspective. THOSE women need to see radical feminists counter that bullshit – all of it.
Radical feminists don’t hang out with pimps, johns and supporters of the pornography and prostitution industry. They don’t support them in their attacks on radical feminists.
Radical feminists don’t hang out with religious pimps either. They don’t support them, tacitly or otherwise; they don’t make excuses for why women in fundamentalist marriages having dozens of kids are right where they ought to be.
That shit is NOT better than prostitution. It IS prostitution. And if YOU don’t see that, then your politics are not radical feminist politics.
“I remember you very well from Ms.”
What do you remember about me, Daisy? I don’t remember you at all.
Actually I didn’t comment much either, because of the same things you describe. I was paying attention though.
Heart’s first move was to start a no trans woman policy at Margins, which was aimed particularly at Lynne. (Yes, I know the name [he] used at that time was Lynne; I said “Rainsong” so you would know who I mean.)
I can also use [his] actual legal name too, if you want it.
No it wasn’t. Lynne was outed in 2002. Heart didn’t even go to Mich Fest until 2004 I think it was. Unless you mean her first move took two whole years.
Stop lying you weren’t there.
Oops, misread there, Margins, not the Mich Fest. Heart stayed friends with Lynne at Ms. You claimed she excommunicated him. She didn’t.
And so fucking what if a woman doesn’t want a MTF trans on her women only boards. It is not any kind of a sign of her evilness or proof of her hypocrisy.
The point, delphyne, is that before Heart started screaming about being stalked, she was voluntarily a friend and backer to that man. SHE ERASES THIS PART OF THE STORY.
What the hell is so difficult for you to understand about that?
Heart’s supposed to be perfect? Beyond redemption and all that shit?
Well then, so are we all.
Heart’s not allowed to learn from her mistakes the way the rest of us do?
Well then, neither are you. And you have to be perfect too. (Allowing Daisy Dead Head – who’d call herself a giraffe if she thought it was likely to give her “edgy” cred – to comment on this topic obviously scores you minus points in this respect.)
Is this a points battle or what? Why, exactly are you attempting to anhialate the identity of one particular woman here?
Do women who own land have an assured income? Can they automatically make a living out of it in an emergency or are they just as stuck as everyone else? Does their potential wealth somehow remove them from actually *caring* about women in a radical way? Or is there something else going on here? Something slightly less savoury than a political argument?
You don’t like what a woman has to say? Well address that ffs! And if you feel the person in question hasn’t learned from your wisdom – BIG DEAL! It happens all the time. Pick yourself up, brush yourself down and move on.
Siding with the pro pornies in a personal attack really shows you up. Sorry.
Witchy, you are a LIAR! When and What political stance have we ever sided with the pro-pronies on/with? Point it out. Do it! Peruse the archives right now! Do it! And when you cannot find where we ever sided with pro-pornie ideology, you need to admit that you are fucking full of shit and has elected to do nothing but come over here and poison the well.
Regardless of Daisy’s motives, no one has yet to provide an account or a link that counters her account. Where is a link from a radical feminist?
Why don’t you answer your own question, because you apparently think it is a points battle since you deducted points from us for allowing Daisy’s comment. –“to comment on this topic obviously scores you minus points in this respect.”
Annihilate? Fire extinguishers to the temple? Hyperbole much? How is it that our words are equated to what men do with armies? However, if you mean if we are trying to expose Heart’s hypocrisy because her false radical feminist persona hurts the perception of radical feminism, then yes, we are trying to annihilate Heart’s phony persona.
If the women are so equally destitute or at a disadvantage then why own the land? Why place that albatross around their necks?
If only half of you dying to defend Heart’s honour stuck with the points and/or the political arguments, then you would not be so inclined to defend a fraud and instead advocate for actual radical feminism.
Oh, witchy, nobody’s “siding” with anyone. And your suggestion that I am shows your bias. My personal opinion is, like Amy’s, that the truth is likely somewhere in between Daisy’s and delphyne’s stories.
And, in order for Heart to ever learn from a mistake, she’d have to admit she’d ever made any.
Good luck getting her to.
And until you address the fact that Heart picks squabbles with *me* (see that bullshit post in response to my Feminism for Bugs post), stirs up shit about *me* on every private message board she can insinuate herself into or start up for herself, then I don’t want to hear a *thing* from you about how I’m “competing” with Heart. I’m sick of her competing with me.
Do people REALLY, honestly not get that Heart’s post about anonymous bloggers was directed at the bloggers of AROOO? She admits it herself in the comments thread at Cath Elliott’s, linked to at the bottom of this thread. And do people really not get that her BFF Satsuma has about 50 different screen names – but apparently anonymous posting and shifting screen names is fine and dandy when SHE does it?
And no one is supposed to be the slightest bit upset about that hypocrisy, following on the heels of all the private message board drama going on lately? I don’t think so.
And, in order for Heart to ever learn from a mistake, she’d have to admit she’d ever made any.
Yepper.
To quote Will Smith from MIB (which I recently watched again on cable and enjoyed as much as the first time):
“Don’t start nothing, won’t *be* nothing.”
Oh yeah, I got that. I just thought it was preposterous though. Anybody with half a brain can see you can’t make hierarchies out of that kind of thing, and anybody with the other half working too I hope, would just realise that that kind of posturing is best ignored.
If you spend your life getting upset about Heart being hypocritical when it suits her (and hey, maybe some of the rest of us do it sometimes too!), you’re going to spend your life upset.
And it still doesn’t justify giving space to Daisy Dead Head and doing mealy-mouthed “The truth is probably somewhere in between” just because you don’t want to admit you were in error giving a liar like that any credence whatsoever. She’s not even a good enough liar to find out the actual facts before she pretends she was there in order that you can hear How Bad Heart Was straight from Someone Who Knew. Heart was groomed then and stalked by Lynne, yet somehow that gets twisted round into “what a bitch Heart was” yet again. Yes the rewriting of history is incredibly annoying, but again you don’t need Daisy Fucking Deadhead, friend of pimps, friend of johns, to back you up.
Yes, thank you, Amy. Jesus.
But I guess we’re supposed to just never say anything while we’re being trashed and dragged through the damn dirt. We’re supposed to just stand aside because it’s HEART.
Fuck that. I will say something to and about Heart every single time she makes a dig at me like this.
Well at least you aren’t dressing it up as chemotherapy for radical feminism any more.
I objected to the fact that Daisy was clearly feeling welcomed here and was being used as some kind of expert on what happened when in fact she wasn’t there and is lying.
You don’t have to stand aside if someone is having a dig, but my advice for whatever it’s worth, is to ignore her. Otherwise you’re letting her set your agenda.
delphyne, either point out where Daisy lied, or stop it.
For real.
You haven’t said anything that really contradicts what she’s said. And you haven’t pointed to any radical feminist analysis of Heart’s philosophy. So, until you do, stop it.
Also, it’s funny to me that you *see* that Heart does this shit, that she’s a shit-stirring asshole, but you think the solution is for *me* to stop pointing it out.
I’m not part of your group, delphyne. I’m not trying to maintain any “unity” with you people. So, if I’m “ruining” your “unity” by calling Heart out on her childish ass bullshit, then stop reading here, stop commenting here, and go have your “radical feminism” with the liars and shit-stirrers who just happen to CALL themselves radical feminists, instead of liars and shit-stirrers who in my opinion aren’t lying right this instant.
And, yes, Heart does more damage to radical feminism by calling herself a radical feminist BECAUSE SHE GETS THE SUPPORT OF COWARDS LIKE YOU than Daisy does because NOBODY thinks she’s a radical feminist regardless of what she says.
So, yeah, excising the cancer from my midst. I’m not interested in fluffing the numbers with scorned-fundamentalists-dressing-up-as-radical-feminists. To me an ass-whooping husband is no better than a pimp, and yet Heart still has plenty of love for her ass-whooping husbands. Why aren’t you at her blog telling her that still consorting with whichever of her ass-beating husbands is still alive is the same thing as “supporting” ass-beating ideologies.
Oh, that’s right, talking to someone isn’t the same as supporting everything they’ve ever said or done.
But you know that, so please go circle your wagons around Heart somewhere else.
“than Daisy does because NOBODY thinks she’s a radical feminist regardless of what she says”
Ha, ha. I hope Daisy is listening. You just used her, I bet she’ll be enjoying that.
I don’t give a shit about what Heart says, like I said I ignore her most of the time. I don’t think she’s a poster child for radical feminism any more than anybody else is. Anyone who comes to radical feminism will be thinking a lot about it anyway and looking at what people have to say and weighing up their own judgements about how valuable people’s contributions and opinions are. Nobody gets to be in charge, no matter how much they want to be.
But anyway this post started about a response to a silly post about a hierarchy of anonymity amongst bloggers. Now it’s turned into “rid radical feminism of the scourge of Heart!” I think you’ve got a hard job on your hands myself.
Yeah, we let a couple of her comments through, edited them suitably, and pointed out that no radical feminist had stepped up to the plate about Heart’s appropriation and dilution of radical feminism.
Looking at what people have to say, delphyne, assuming you’re “people,” leads people to see that so-called radical feminists care more about fluffing Heart’s ego than eliminating classist, racist sexism from their midst. It’s not about who’s “in charge,” delphyne. It’s about the atmosphere of classist, racist sexism that’s allowed to fester because people like you just can’t bear the thought that one of their own might be expected to own up to past mistakes and stop recommending those mistakes to others. You think I’m holding only Heart responsible, which is a fucking laugh to me. I’m holding everyone who supports her, and other women like her, responsible for the reputation radical feminism has online these days.
The advice I’m offering *you*, delphyne, is that you recognize that what you call “ignoring” Heart is really enabling her. You don’t see me defending any of what Daisy has said on the topic of anything other than what she’s said about the similarities between Heart’s treatment of RS and her treatment of Satsuma. But I’ve seen you enable a whole LOT of bullshit from Heart, and you even RECOMMEND such a stance to others.
I’m not going to play a part in whitewashing.
And, yes, the topic was that Heart sets up ridiculous hierarchies in order to elevate herself over other women – at the expense of poor women, black women, publicly outspoken women – anyone who might be more immediately at risk of losing her job (and therefore her rented home) than some landowning blond white woman. My point was that Heart’s philosophy is classist-sexist (and also racist-sexist).
And I felt a need to say that because (a) Heart was only saying this anti-woman, poor-hating, black-hating stuff because she wanted to get a dig in at *me and Kitty* (throwing other women under the bus for a vendetta), and (b) Heart saying these things from her position of total indulgence through all of the women like you, delphyne, gives her words more weight than if other women had said it.
“But I’ve seen you enable a whole LOT of bullshit from Heart, and you even RECOMMEND such a stance to others.”
What, you’ve seen me ignoring her? That must have been interesting to watch.
“It’s about the atmosphere of classist, racist sexism that’s allowed to fester because people like you just can’t bear the thought that one of their own might be expected to own up to past mistakes and stop recommending those mistakes to others.”
Oh hell, if I thought that Heart would ever own up to past mistakes that would be absolutely fantastic. I’ve just been around long enough on the internet to know that will never ever happen and the only person left exhausted and hurt will be the one trying to get those admissions. So what’s the answer? The only one I ever came up with was just ignoring her. It could be the wrong one of course, I don’t know. You’re taking a different approach.
“You think I’m holding only Heart responsible, which is a fucking laugh to me. I’m holding everyone who supports her, and other women like her, responsible for the reputation radical feminism has online these days.”
The reputation with whom? Could you point to some of these would-be radical feminists who somehow have managed to let Heart and her indulgers/ignorers/or supporters and others get in the way of their wanting to free women from male oppression.
Oh, delphyne, you wouldn’t give a shit about any of the women put off by Heart’s racist and classist sexism. And you enabled Heart’s marriage-praising, if I understand correctly, when she started name-calling women who spoke out against marriage on Rain’s board, for one example.
And you misunderstand if you think I’m trying to get any admissions out of Heart. I just told witchy up there that it was never going to happen and wished her luck trying (although I know she won’t try because she, like you, doesn’t give a shit whether Heart spouts racist/classist sexism in the name of radical feminism).
I’m simply not going to operate under the rationale that her failure to learn from her mistakes, her disinterest in even trying to do so, means I personally have to act as though they never happened. That might make life run more smoothly for you, delphyne, since you like hanging out with racist sexists, but it doesn’t work for me. So, yes, I’m taking a different approach than you. We have different priorities.
When other feminists online say they don’t want anything to do with radical feminism’s reputation as being an ideological haven for classist, racist, *religiously fundamentalist* white women, HEART and ALL OF HER PROTECTORS are what people are talking about. Yet you don’t give a shit about THOSE women being turned off – because they’re black, or land-less, or can’t stand religion, or prefer the company of women who understand racism to the company of women who oppose prostitution (but not marriage and loads of kids) but value the contributions of white/light people over the contributions of black/dark people.
Well, I *do* care about their opinions. And I’m sick of people like you protecting Heart’s position at their expense.
Delphyne,
Heart totally threw me under the bus. You saw her do that.
I do *not* think that there was anything you should have / could have done in that situation. As you know, I admire your own outspoken and lucid radical feminist analysis.
My concern is that Heart wields the power of the press through her years of determination and thousands and thousands of hours of work to elevate her internet presence as the mouthpiece of “radical feminism”. She wields the power of the press because she has decades of experience as a highly successful and highly paid journalist and propagandist for an exploitive misogynistic ideology. She wields the power of the press because no other feminist blogger that I know of, short of Twisty (who also has experience in the publishing world) can match her in the successful application of those skills. Not many feminist bloggers have them.
Heart applies her skills, as do the sex-pozzies and tranz-advocates, to erase and obscure actual radical feminism by throwing reams of her own writings up in its place, by placing a decoy.
Actual radical feminists, not males, are her target. As in, we are the actual people that she chooses to target.
The point, delphyne, is that before Heart started screaming about being stalked, she was voluntarily a friend and backer to that man. SHE ERASES THIS PART OF THE STORY.
What the hell is so difficult for you to understand about that?
So are you saying she is lying about being stalked? Or that she was stalked but she *asked for it* because she was previously friendly to her stalker – that it was all her fault in fact?
I haven’t got the faintest idea what all this is about, and I don’t care. But that looks a lot to me like victim blaming.
Well, the point is the similarity between the erasure of her former support for RS, and the way she has thrown other women, like Biting Beaver, like Mary Sunshine, and others, under the bus once they’d served their purpose.
Do try to keep up.
The only thing I’d disagree with, Mary, is that women who, like delphyne, sit by and watch it happen, don’t exacerbate the problem. They lend legitimacy to it all with their silence. To do nothing *always* supports the status quo in male supremacy.
One can “ignore” a problem by walking out of places where this misappropriation of radical feminism takes place. But time and time again, delphyne and women like her have stayed, offering their tacit support for the overt attacks against radical feminists and radical feminism taking place within their midst. The bride to be, the over-invested mother/nanny of boys, the god-botherer – they are all coddled to the prohibition of even the continued *participation* by women who object to the toleration of these heterosexual behaviors. Time and time again. And not only that, but they then go out and recommend that other women do it too. How many other women might speak out if not for the fact that women like delphyne, who otherwise seem to have really sound radical feminist analyses, push back against any and everyone who refuses to go along with it?
She has an agenda to shut all of us down, not just Heart who she is firing on, but you, me, everybody
Excuse me, I am a old Yippie, let a thousand flowers bloom, etc. I have no desire to shut ANYONE down.
Cut the melodrama, okay? This isn’t Margins.
Ha, ha, complaining about melodrama on a thread that is basically about the decision to try and drive Heart from radical feminism because she’s ruining it for everybody else.
Anyway Daisy, what do you remember about me at the Ms Boards. You still haven’t said. How long will it take you to get Lynne on MSN or whatever it is, so he can give you a few quotes?
Sorry Delphyne this summation is not the truth, nor is it honest, and of course it is misleading. You are acting like we initiated and conspired against poor Heart. Like she did not do anything but exist and we decided out of the blue to bring her down. Well Delphyne, you seem to be glossing over the fact that Heart just in the last few weeks started not one, but two threads talking shit about us. The animal rights thread and the anonymous blogging thread. So please get the facts straight. If you think we are going to just ignore her, you know, like the advice you gave me when I needed you over on Rain’s boards, you are wrong. You know, when Heart came to the boards wagging her finger at people. You know, when Heart in order to oppose what I was saying changed her position, a position she had just stated the opposite only a few weeks before, remember?
Sorry. No one gave two straws about Heart, much less wanted to spend time and energy to conspire against her. However as I said in response to Witchy’s when she used male-army terminology, annihilate, yes, yes, we will (and have) highlight the hypocrisies of Heart. If revealing her bullshit is to annihilate, then yes, yes. But don’t get it twisted Delphyne and make Heart out as some victim who was just minding her own damn business. You need to ask yourself whey you are so invested in Heart.
And so fucking what if a woman doesn’t want a MTF trans on her women only boards. It is not any kind of a sign of her evilness or proof of her hypocrisy.
Up until that point, Lynne was allowed in.
Up until that point he was pretending to be a woman but then he was outed.
Men aren’t women Daisy.
I bet he’s feeding you this crap too. Same way Bint Alshama got half her ammo against Heart from Lynne too.
ZOMFG, I really thought I would leave this thread to see if it cooled down any. Nope!
If it seriously is about all this, about H out to get RF bloggers, then there are possibly better ways than to do it by grandstanding on a public blog. I prefer to air the RF ‘dirty laundry’ in private spaces, rather than give our opponents plenty of ammo to go after any of us, individually.
Do I think Heart is a radical feminist? No, probably not. At best radfem-lite – she is anti-pornstitution, but very conservative on everything else. As an anti-pornstitution blogger, then she should not be torn to shreds publicly (as we do need the support).
I do think supporting known-antiradfem DDH was not a smart tactic. Nor was attacking delphyne or witchy (just my personal opinion, as they’d be my mates).
Certainly, that does not mean remain silent about certain issues, but say it, and move on, without creating mega blog wars. Please find that line.
The two of you, Margie & Kitty, have some great analysis on many things, but this sort of dirty linen crap is like a dark cloud hanging over the blog. Please stop.
I prefer to air the RF ‘dirty laundry’ in private spaces
That only works until you get kicked out of those private spaces for doing so.
And / or those privates spaces cease to exist.
I understand, and did think it was out of order Mary.
First of all, stormy, you need to acknowledge the fact that *none* of this would be happening if Heart hadn’t made a false claim to radical feminism in the first place. Or if anybody said anything about it when it happens, both in public *and* in private.
Second of all, allowing a few comments from DaisyDeadhead *on a topic unrelated to her advocacy of prostitution and transitioning* has nothing to do with “supporting” her. And if radical feminists can’t address the *non-prostitution/transition-related* critiques from other women, then what the fuck is the point?
Well, the term/label radical feminist has lost most of its meaning anyway. Anybody and everybody claims to be one, even most females claim to be (regular) feminist regardless of just wanting to keep the status quo of getting married and having baybees.
It is pointless to try and police who is in or out of either feminism or radical feminism. You can only disagree with the ideas put forth.
“2009 JULY 4
Margaret PERMALINK
Oh, delphyne, you wouldn’t give a shit about any of the women put off by Heart’s racist and classist sexism. And you enabled Heart’s marriage-praising, if I understand correctly, when she started name-calling women who spoke out against marriage on Rain’s board, for one example.”
Actually I do give a shit about them which is why I’m asking you who they are. Maybe I’ll have to rethink my approach.
But thank fuck you’ve got your spies Margaret. What would you do without them? Did they tell you I asked them to delete me from Rain’s forums because of what they did to Mary, or did that story not get back to you?
You’d better provide quotes of what I’m supposed to have said, because I can’t imagine *ever* backing Heart in an argument in support of marriage. I think the gossip and Chinese whispers are getting out of control here.
Do I support marriage? No. Do I think women are oppressed by marriage? Yes. Is getting married a feminist (not even a radical feminist) act? Not in the slightest. Is that good enough for you? Actually I don’t care any more if it’s good enough for you. In defending your own position you’ve had to tear me down completely, which is bullshit. You know I’m a radical feminist so you’ll have to find another way of arguing with me that doesn’t include deriding my politics.
delphyne, delphyne, delphyne, you didn’t say *anything*, and you didn’t have to, your “ignoring” it while women who were opposing this notion that marriage is somehow feminist were chastised and, at least in one case, banned.
You don’t have to say a thing, delphyne; you just have to keep doing what you’re doing.
Which is how I know you don’t give a shit about the women who are offended by Heart’s bullshit – because otherwise you wouldn’t feel comfortable just letting her shit go without challenge.
I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
I don’t even remember a thread there about marriage not being feminist. And you are really *stretching* it to claim that me ignoring Heart or not paying attention to that kind of nonsense (if what you say is true of course – I’m sure the truth is probably somewhere in between) is enabling her. I reckon the women who feel offended enough by her at Rain’s forum are plenty able to speak up about it for themselves, or to ignore it if they don’t like it. I’m not their mummy, I didn’t get the message telling me my new job was to police Heart because there are other women in the vicinity who don’t like what she says.
Oh, OK, delphyne, you don’t remember any conversation about a certain “radical feminist” blogger getting married, the aftermath of which included the banning of a member? You don’t remember Heart storming in to tell everyone not to “attack” that bride-to-be, all while actually attacking the women who’d criticized it? And you honestly don’t think that might have been a nice time for you to speak up about what’s what when it comes to radical feminism?
Women who feel uncomfortable with what Heart says will *never* speak up when they know that long-standing feminists like you will never back them up, and when they’ve seen long-standing feminists who *do* speak up get banned and ostracized in favor of the non-radical feminist imposter.
And, no, you’re not the “mummy” of anyone uncomfortable with Heart. You’re the mummy of Heart, running around to my blog to protect her from the criticisms of women who *aren’t* afraid to speak up.
Did they tell you I asked them to delete me from Rain’s forums because of what they did to Mary, or did that story not get back to you?
Delphyne, that’s awesome. I didn’t know that.
You’ve always been a stalwart.
00
The thing is Mary, she did not do it for me, or any women before me. So, why do it for you (although I think you are great). That is how one woman is elevated over other women, when the mob behaviour is accepted for some, but not for others.
What is it about this software that means that I can’t reply to your posts in response to me Margaret. Is there any way of altering that?
Delphyne, are you using the “reply” hyperlink at the bottom of the comment concerned?
There is a limit to the number of replies (the default is three, and I think here is set to the default).
The nesting only goes so far – I think 3 nesting comments; then you can’t nest comments anymore.
You can reset it from the default of three, up to ten.
Ah. But the text box is sort of scrunched when it gets to the point of 3 even, so I think any more would be a tight fit. Maybe it’s just like that on my screen though.
You don’t have to stand aside if someone is having a dig, but my advice for whatever it’s worth, is to ignore her. Otherwise you’re letting her set your agenda.
Have you looked at my blog over the last few days delphyne? Have you looked at all the other posts here at AROOO about other subjects? Have you looked at the violence thread at AW’s blog? Have you looked at the separatism thread at Undercover Punk’s blog? All very active over the last few days.
No one here is letting anyone set our agenda, and to think we are just shows that you aren’t paying attention.
As I said before, delphyne, and witchy too, I have always respected you and what you have to say. But I have never felt support from either of you. (Remember when thebewilderness and Cool Aunt were attacking me/lesbian-feminists on the radicals roar board, and the silence was deafening? Didn’t think so.) So I’m not feeling particularly inclined to disregard one particular post that I mostly agree with (and made clear the parts that I didn’t) because the writer happens to disagree with me on most everything else. My politics are not in danger, no matter what anyone thinks, and I am perfectly capable of figuring out where someone else’s lie and making decisions accordingly.
And the whole “airing dirty laundry in private” thing? Sorry, but no. Non-radfems are going to talk shit about us anyway, they’ve proven that over and over. And the “privacy” that y’all love so much is EXACTLY what has let this shit go on unchallenged for so long. I have nothing to say that I’m not willing to say in front of the entire internet, and let people judge me as they will. A lifetime of being judged lacking daily and growing up in a world where “privacy” meant some people had the power to abuse me with impunity have made me extremely suspicious of the kind of back-room scheming you are recommending.
The fact that everyone, EVERYONE who is an internet radical feminist has ignored the bullshit antics of Heart&Co over YEARS has meant that those of us who want to be affiliated with other radical feminists had nowhere else to go where that kind of trashing, hypocrisy, revisioning of history, and lauding of cultural feminism were not tolerated. Now we do. AROOO is it, and I’m so fucking grateful you can’t imagine. I see a bigger picture here than the rest of you apparently — I see the birth of a new online community of radical feminists to whom principles and analysis are more important than coddling, personal loyalty and appearing “good.” If that’s the kind of place you want to hang out in, well, here it is, and I know that Margaret and Kitty are fair enough not to hold someone’s past errors against her — because they didn’t hold my former self-serving Heart-apologism against me. They’re also strong enough to counter any anti-feminist misogyny that Daisy or others might try to propagate here.
So that’s the decision that you finger-waggers need to make. We’re building a radical feminist alternative here. Do you want to be a part of that, or not?
Not only that, Heart fucking tried to control what was said in private at Rain’s board, and women over there allowed it. She fucking hardly ever participated in other threads and as soon as we were trying to talk something out (that thread was initiated because some “radical feminist” said something stupid, like marriage was radical or hers would be because you know, she said so) Heart came in acting like she was the queen of what is to be discussed and what is not. And, she only protected middle class white women. When we talked shit about Renee (a black woman), she did not say a damn thing.
It is obvious, Heart has attempted to control the discourse in radical feminist spaces. Heart has set herself up on the internet as the authority of radical feminism. Daisy did make that point when she said Heart did not name her joint Heart’s Space but Women’s Space. And, as I recall when I tried to claim that angle to support my point a few years back on Heart’s blog, she and others cried how it was Heart’s blog, not women’s blog. Well, imagine the fucking confusion, Heart’s Space or Women’s Space. Yet we are expected to remain quiet. As if.
And yet for me, I just cannot be arsed spending any time even dwelling on this (the whole this, and specific thises etc).
I figure it is parallel to separatism, just ignore.
Comments that are personal attacks will not be posted. If you are too thick to know the difference between a personal attack and a heated comment, then that is your issue that you need to deal with, not ours.
“The thing is Mary, she did not do it for me, or any women before me. So, why do it for you (although I think you are great). That is how one woman is elevated over other women, when the mob behaviour is accepted for some, but not for others.”
No you’re right I didn’t and I felt bad about it. I felt bad that I had sat and said nothing whilst that happened to you. It’s probably a bit late to be saying it now, but it was factored into my decision when I saw what happened to Mary and then I looked back and thought “It happened to Kitty too, what’s going on here?”.
Delphyne, I do respect you, and like you a whole bunch. But, I still think you and other women must ask yourself why some women are giving the benefit of the doubt over others, why some women are elevated over others, and why some women are sacrificed and others are not. Why?(Perhaps that is what you are doing now.) And I have to tell you from where I sit, the woman who comes out at the wrong end of the stick is always the blackest, the poorest, the one lacking in sophistication (using middle class scale), etc. That will always be a problem if that behavior goes unchecked and uncorrected in a movement (and/or spaces) that is supposedly for all women.
Hi Kitty,
The thing is Mary, she did not do it for me, or any women before me. So, why do it for you (although I think you are great). That is how one woman is elevated over other women, when the mob behaviour is accepted for some, but not for others.
I don’t think that she necessarily elevated me. Delphyne and I know each other from all sorts of battles and purges dating from when I used to post at IBTP. I think it’s probably (although is it ever useful to guess?) mammalian psychology: lots of well-worn neural pathways with respect to Mary Sunshine in the context of adrenalin fiestas, plus, ( Kitty you & Margie weren’t there so you didn’t get to see … ) the extraordinarily extravagant adrenalin fiesta surrounding the purging of Mary S and AW from Rain’s boards. Just saying, maybe higher adrenalin levels, I dunno.
The thing is, the audience does not know the back-story or the individual reasons. The audience takes their cue from what happens, and if particular women are not defended and another one is for the same “crime”, then there you are.
I agree, Kitty. Which is why I insist that all participants in a space are equally responsible for its atmosphere.
Up until that point he was pretending to be a woman but then he was outed.
NO.
That is my point…Lynne was outed in 2002 and this was 2003, after the fact of the outing. I was not there for the outing; I had no access to the internet during that window of time. That is why I’m not sure who did it… Brenda or Wendy McElroy? I DID read McElroy’s essay about Lynne on iFeminists. And at that time, Heart was still defending Lynne’s right to be at Margins, from people like Jeanie, Char and if I am not mistaken, Lucky. Lucky had roomed in a motel room with Lynne and felt violated after finding out about Lynne. (I did get back in time to read THAT on the boards.)
Well, duh, of course it is second hand. As I said, Lynne would hysterically email anyone who would listen to [his] obsession with Heart, Heart, Heart. It was undoubtedly unhealthy, and why did Heart encourage it?
What do you remember about me, Daisy? I don’t remember you at all.
Ain’t my problem you have a bad memory, Delphyne.
I remember you were as worshipful of Heart then, as you are now.
Men aren’t women Daisy.
I have not come here to argue this (rather obsessive, IMHO) point with you. My point is Heart’s hypocrisy, which knows no bounds. Lynne was used until no longer of use. Satsuma is now serving the same purpose. And groupies like you, of course, will always be there to tell her how wonderful she is. Until you cross her in any way, then you will be history too.
Kiss Heart’s ass or you are out–the Joe Stalin model of political camaraderie.
Witchy: who’d call herself a giraffe if she thought it was likely to give her “edgy” cred
Who are these cred-assigners that I should be making supplications to? (Damn, did I miss someone?)
Witchy, no one pays any attention to me. I am an old southern grandma, and
a far cry from “edgy”–did you check the NAME? (Are Deadheads EDGY now?) I was called an old hippie burnout and told to go away from a trendy blog last week. Again, yall must have me mixed up with someone else.
Delphyne: Ha, ha. I hope Daisy is listening. You just used her, I bet she’ll be enjoying that.
I am a big girl, as stated above. I don’t much care what you or anyone else thinks of me, or (speaking of feminism) I’da been dead long ago. Vicious fascist biker males have tried to shut me up, in the flesh, and failed utterly. Ain’t skeered. This is the deep south; bring out your big guns, I won’t budge.
Boo!
And from the couldn’t be more irrelevant at this point files but I’m obsessive-compulsive about stuff and so am not succeeding at stifling myself about it at this point:
Daisy, just wanted to clarify re: my earlier comment about history with people or not. I value this type of conversation and the people who are having it, though I feel simultaneously like I am not personally involved in much of what’s going on, if that makes sense. But since I do have a really strong reaction to people asking each other to “not air dirty laundry in order to keep ammunition out of the hands of enemies” (paraphrasing many people in many places and times), I felt like, yeah I have a personal interest in responding to that idea here and elsewhere. I just wanted to make clear when doing so that I wasn’t saying it as a veiled *anything*, with regard to any of the personalities involved here at this thread, hence my I-have-no-history-with-people-in-this-particular-fight comment.
But then later I felt like, well that sounds like I’m trying to distance myself from the women I listed, like I don’t and would never associate with any of you. But of course I have read, commented at, received comments from, many of the women I listed, including you. Sometimes agreeing with each other, sometimes not. Hence this obsessive follow up comment that no one will likely care about, and understandably so, ha.
“I am a big girl, as stated above. I don’t much care what you or anyone else thinks of me, or (speaking of feminism) I’da been dead long ago. Vicious fascist biker males have tried to shut me up, in the flesh, and failed utterly. Ain’t skeered. This is the deep south; bring out your big guns, I won’t budge.”
And yet you were triggered by me calling you a manz lover and a trans lover. Don’t you mean boo hoo?
You don’t remember me being worshipful of Heart because it DIDN’T HAPPEN. Tell me one concrete thing you remember about me Daisy. Go on, I know you can do it.
the criticisms of women who *aren’t* afraid to speak up.
The irony is Margaret that I *am* afraid, I always have been! That’s why it took me so long to come to the point of speaking out. It’s irony that we are getting scorned for not “ignoring” this when I HAVE been ignoring it for years, to the detriment of myself, others, and my ideology. I hate getting trashed and yelled at, it really hurts and I don’t handle it well. And I’ve been trashed enough lately (elsewhere) to last me a lifetime, really. But I still think that principles are more important; my personal feelings of hurt or fear don’t justify my standing by when a destructive pattern of ideology and behavior is repeated, over and over again. And it sounds like maybe delphyne is in the process of making a similar realization/decision, which if true in my opinion would make this ENTIRE thread worthwhile.
And yet you were triggered by me calling you a manz lover and a trans lover. Don’t you mean boo hoo?
I don’t believe I said I was triggered… I did (shiver) and proclaim the language triggering in general.
Is this the best you can do?: “I know you are but what am I?” You said I was a liar, and I want you to back up your irresponsible accusation.
Otherwise, all bullshit.
Tell me one concrete thing you remember about me Daisy
I remember your avatar, a very femme artistic rendering of a woman, which I found odd. Was it some kind of famous art?
Otherwise, nothing much to remember. Most groupies are boring, after all, which is why they have to latch on to larger, more colorful personalities.
Now, let’s hear what I have said here that is a lie. Do you remember that Lucky was banned from the Ms. boards 8 times and her last incarnation was named “Holy Ghost”? (I admit I thought that was damn funny, okay.) Do you remember when Feminista and Mar Iguana were banned for using the term “Jew Boy” and refusing to apologize to Jewish feminists who objected?
Lots of fun tales from the Ms boards. You say you paid attention, yet I see no tales from YOU–are you sure you are the same Delphyne?
“are you sure you are the same Delphyne?”
Oops Daisy. There wasn’t a Delphyne at the Ms Boards. That’s how I knew you didn’t remember me and you were full of shit. Well that and getting the time lines wrong on Lynne’s outing and the sequence of events that followed it. I see you must have been back in touch with someone from the old days though because you are busy filling in the gaps and mending the holes in your story. The funny thing is I’m pretty sure there is someone else on this thread who was at Ms but for some reason they aren’t mentioning it.
And your obsession with Lucky and Heart means that you are either one of the trans gang yourself (notice manz lover didn’t bother you, just trans lover) or you are getting filled in on this by Lynne, because you know all sorts of little details that would only obsess him or one of his trans mates.
Why don’t you just send him over instead of acting like his proxy?
The last nickname of Lucky I remember was Goddess of All your Dreams because people couldn’t stop talking and obsessing about her (maybe now Heart could borrow it). Couldn’t tell you about Holy Ghost but Lynne probably kept notes.
Loony multiple posting. I meant to add that these:
“Scarlet Begonias and China Cat Sunflower on the Ms boards”
If they were names of posters at the Ms Boards sound a lot like the kind of sock puppet names that psycho-trans Nikkiru used to use as he attempted to wreak destruction in feminist space. Luckily he only had limited success as there were so many women there to outnumber him.
How is the dear old fucking psychopath these days Daisy? Tell him we don’t miss him.
Joan, not a problem at all. Please don’t fret over it.
My concern is that Heart wields the power of the press through her years of determination and thousands and thousands of hours of work to elevate her internet presence as the mouthpiece of “radical feminism”. She wields the power of the press because she has decades of experience as a highly successful and highly paid journalist and propagandist for an exploitive misogynistic ideology. She wields the power of the press because no other feminist blogger that I know of, short of Twisty (who also has experience in the publishing world) can match her in the successful application of those skills. Not many feminist bloggers have them.
This.
Oops Daisy. There wasn’t a Delphyne at the Ms Boards. That’s how I knew you didn’t remember me and you were full of shit.
Indeed, there was. (Since Delphyne is a goddess, you don’t think you are the only one who ever thought of using that name, do you?)
Well, you think I am full of shit and I think you are, so I guess that makes us even.
And no comment on the infamous “Jew Boy” incident? I was thinking YOU were Feminista, so I can see why you might have blanked on that particular incident, which nearly brought down the boards.
And your obsession with Lucky and Heart means that you are either one of the trans gang yourself (notice manz lover didn’t bother you, just trans lover)
“I know you are but what am I?” lol
Indeed there wasn’t a Delphyne. You can sound as high-handed as you like and it still won’t make it true.
Why would I comment on the “Jew Boy” incident? It’s just on a list of things you’ve been given to make you sound like you know about what happened there.
““I know you are but what am I?” lol”
Doesn’t make me wrong though does it, Daisy? Anyway enough of this, a blog that gives you space to spread your shit, even when it’s being done in the name of saving radical feminism from itself isn’t somewhere I want to be. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they realise that giving you space isn’t a very good move though, whatever viewpoint a radical feminist might be looking at it from.
Yes, I do believe this particular interaction is played out.
There was one point to be made about him, and that was Heart endorsed/tolerated him. That Heart tolerated him until he became a liability. That is an important point. It has been made. Anyone who wants to counter that, can do so by providing links.
Daisy/Delphyne, no more about Lynne.
I find it really amusing that someone who came here preaching about ignoring and ancient history and not fighting etc etc has participated in devolving this thread into an ideology-free mudslinging festival of past irrelevancies not even remotely approximated by ANYTHING that occurred here until now.
Particularly since at most Margaret, Kitty and I each engaged Daisy ONCE since she showed up, which hardly amounts to giving her any kind of platform.