_allecto_: Infuriating conversations and women who call themselves lesbians

dani (

_allecto_) wrote,
@ 2007-12-04 21:05:00

Infuriating conversations and women who call themselves lesbians
Friday nights are the unofficial lesbian and gay nights at the local bar. So I went dancing ‘cause I was bored. I had fun dancing to shitty pop music. But some of the conversations I had were very depressing.

An acquaintance introduced me to all the lesbians and to one straight woman and her boyfriend. For some reason the boyfriend insisted on talking to me even though I made it pretty clear I wasn’t interested in him.

Our conversation:

Him: “What do you do?”

Me: “I’m a radical feminist and I write.”

Him: “Oh, should I be speaking to you then?”

Me: “That depends on whether you think women are human or not.”

Him: “Of course I do.”

Less than 10 minutes later:

Him: “I’m a dickhead.”

Me: “Most men are.”

Him: “Well, most women are bitches.”

Me: “I happen to like female dogs.”

Hmm… so he thinks women are human and ‘bitches’ at the same time. And this is the quality of man who is accepted by the lesbian community. The next time any man comes up to me and wants to talk I am just going to tell him that I don't talk to men. Full stop. Ever. I'm so fucking over my complicity in having pointless conversations with boring dickheads.

Not that the conversations I had with 'lesbian' women were all that much better. I got to talking to the only younger ‘lesbian’ there. I said I was a feminist and she immediately asked whether that meant I hated men. I said yes, pretty much. A little while later she started talking about promiscuous straight women, calling them sluts and saying they were easy.

I was shocked and of course I disagreed with her emphatically and explained why. After our fairly brief conversation she left to go to the toilet. When she came back she walked straight past me and went to talk to the dickhead who called women bitches. And she was all over him. Hugging and kissing him. It was really weird. She didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

Lesbian is another one of those words that has lost its meaning. So many women who call themselves lesbians do not have the slightest clue what the word means. The incredibly life-changing, soul-altering history and politics of the concept is being forgotten, erasing potentially radical women from existence.

captainvanille has fatefully (and I use the word in its feminist sense, ie. with reference to the Fates) tagged me to write up some definitions for our very own online Wickedary. One of the words I do will most certainly be the word lesbian.

I'm also in the middle of writing a mess of a post on Joss Whedon and Firefly. I am so, so angry after forcing myself to watch the show. It confirms everything I believe about leftist men who call themselves feminists.

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captainvanille
2007-12-04 01:45 pm UTC (link)

Ugh.

It's very sad that the word "lesbian" has lost its meaning as "woman-loving". Now, it seems, even supposed lesbians want to be Honourary Men - or separate themselves in some way from straight women, who they assume to be somehow inferior for wanting/needing men. Both of these reasons involve blaming women for systems and prejudices that are not their fault.

I don't, however, find it astounding that a straight man would say such a thing to you and expect you to agree with him. 1. Men have been trained to think that everyone agrees with him because he is Right; 2. Historically, doublespeak has never been as virulent as at a time like this, in the midst of social backlash for women gaining legal rights; and 3. "Bitch" has entered pop culture's vocabulary of sexy words - I wouldn't be surprised if he expected you to find him saying that a turn on!

Egh. Don't lose hope in the younger generation.. at least not completely. I'm only 19, after all.

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	_allecto_ 2007-12-07 07:38 am UTC (link)
	Hey, I wasn't at all shocked at meeting a man who called women bitches. But men like him do still make me angry. And of course I haven't given up on the younger generation. I still think of myself as young. And meeting awesome young women like yourself is always amazing. You young chickens put me to shame. I was so stupid at your age. (Reply to this)(Parent)

jcspd
2007-12-05 04:26 am UTC (link)

hey -

this doesn't relate to this post specifically but i've been meaning to comment for awhile. i wanna say first that i agree with lots of what you post and really pretty much hate men myself. At the same time - and of course this is part of a much bigger conversation - when I think about your objections to "postmodern" discourse I always think of the following Audre Lorde quote:

"As a Black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live. My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without restriction of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living."

Here, the so-called "postmodern" notion of having "different" selves is put together with the notion of "wholeness," a philosophical move that, I think, demonstrates that it is not quite the "postmodern" that is patriarchal; rather, the very *ability* to think of "wholeness" and "difference" (fragments, whatever) AS oppositional is a particular positionality of privilege.

In any case I've suddenly become too tired to finish (or begin, really...) where I'm going in opposition to your use of the phrase "postmodern." But I'm wondering...I'm a feminist woman who, yes, thinks that white patriarchy is objectively the enemy. But I have male friends. CLOSE male friends. One of the closest, A Chicano queer, said to me at the beginning of our friendship: "Stefanie, I will betray you. Because every time I, as a man, assimilate into white faggotry, it is on YOUR back." What do you make of this model of friendship? One that begins at that point and then sees what can come from that? I'm not going to tell you how great I think he is because that can change as it mostly does with men. But it is the case that he's taught me a lot and that it brings me joy to be his friend. He is not defensive about charges of sexism - he admits that as a man he simply IS sexist even if he desires not to be. When we are at a place with mostly women/lesbians he reminds me that I can ask him to leave at any time, and when I leave a place saying "i can't stand to be around these faggots," he doesn't flinch. And this makes me not feel the feeling I inevitably feel whenever I even engage with a man, the feeling that you describe when I am like, "oh right, you don't see me as human." Somehow getting that part of it out of the way allows us to access the connections we really do have, connections that are impossible to locate precisely but have tons to do with race, queerness, desire (not sexual desire, really), etc.

anyway those thoughts were less coherent than i wanted them to be. it's late!

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_allecto_
2007-12-05 11:35 am UTC (link)

Thanks for your comment. I didn't realise you were still reading your lj flist.

It is my belief that much of the concepts and ideas of post-modernism have been stolen from feminism and the revolutionary nature of them leeched from them by the patriarchs. For example, the word deconstruction was first used by a rad fem called Ti-Grace Atkinson in 1970. A piece of writing by a feminist called 'The Structureless World' was circulated like wildfire through feminist networks, way before the existance of email. The groundwork, the potentially radical concepts of what the patriarchs call postmodernism, is in actuality, feminism. Feminism is a sythesis, a transformation of many, many political ideologies. Post-modernism developed during and after many different groups were coming together to rock the boat of white male supremacy. It is my belief that post-modernism exists in order to render those forces (feminism, anti-racism, anti-capitalism, etc) obsolete. And it has been largely successful in academia, in LGBTIQ, and in mainstream society at large.

It is my belief that Audre Lorde would roll in her grave if she knew her words were being used to defend concepts and ideologies that have largely been developed by rich, white men at the cost of all women, and in particular women of colour. It deeply offended me that Judith Butler referenced Audre Lorde's disagreement with Mary Daly in Gender Trouble. From what I've read, Lorde was passionate about her belief in women, sisterhood and radical feminism, even though she consistently spoke out against white sisters and their ethnocentricity. Judith Butler has spent her life tearing the work of radical feminists to shreds. She had no right to tokenise Lorde in this way.

Here, the so-called "postmodern" notion of having "different" selves is put together with the notion of "wholeness," a philosophical move that, I think, demonstrates that it is not quite the "postmodern" that is patriarchal; rather, the very *ability* to think of "wholeness" and "difference" (fragments, whatever) AS oppositional is a particular positionality of privilege.

THIS is radical feminist position not a post-modernist one. And the quote from Lorde is feminism not post-modernism. I don't disagree with post-modernists when they say that gender is a construction. I don't disagree when they say that social structures are constructions. My problem is with their conclusions. I have had arguements with white men who tell me that my view of racism is a subjective position and THEREFORE they are not privileged because they do not see things from my perspective. All subject positions being equal means automatically that white men are always more equal than all others. The post-modern view of gender is the same. Male-supremacy, male dominance, male privilege, male violence, rape, gynocide, oppression, woman-hatred: are just some of the many, many words that are unlikely to appear in a post-modernist text. Why not? Because the post-modernists don't like to mess about in the dirt. They don't like reality, they prefer fantasy. Multiple subject positions translates as their position. I'd love it if I were wrong. Do you know of any post-modernist authors or activists dealing with concrete realities in their works? And speaking of concrete, are there any post-modernists out there setting up rape crisis centres? funding abortion clinics? working on law reforms to prosecute rapists or curb pornography and prostitution? If post-modernism is feminism why is my local women's health centre staffed by under-paid radical feminists?

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_allecto_
2007-12-05 11:35 am UTC (link)

I also can not fit all of my objections to post-modernism into one little comment.

On the subject of male-bodied feminists, well that is something I've been wanting to write about for a long time. I had a very close male friend during uni. I loved him then and still love him now even though we have parted company. I also have two brothers. One is nineteen and I am as close to him as I am to my rad fem sister and my mother, which is to say EXTREMELY close. He is a rad fem, but he is also sometimes my oppressor, and he knows it. Of course, I believe that male-bodied people are human. I go every single year to a protest that marks the death of a 17 y.o. indigenous boy who was killed by the police. Of course, I care about men doing violence to each other especially when it involves race or sexuality. (In fact, several indigenous men have impressed me incredibly with their analysis of male supremacy and women's oppression. I also met an amazing feminist man from Mauritious at a Socialist conference.) But, I also love myself. And I'm sick of hoping for, or believing in, connections that do not ever bear fruit. I recently linked to Mr. Morgan's blog The Big News and if I encounter anyone like him on my travels their genitalia won't stop me from making a connection. But the reality is that male-bodied humans who are refusing to be men are very, very rare. It sounds like you have got one in your Chicano queer. :)

I hope this answers some of your criticisms/questions. By the way, I identified as a queer, post-modernist for about a year and a half until I came across rad fem analysis which made me see things in a different light. I would really like to write some stuff on the intersection of neo-liberalism and post-modernism but I'm not sure if my capabilities as a writer are quite up to the task.

Oh, and don't apologise for coherence or lack thereof, you are much more coherent than I am when I am tired.

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