The nice thing about lesbian separatist radical feminism is that it requires nothing from me.

[xiphias]

So, a bunch of people on my friends list have been linking to a post that someone wrote last year about the misogyny in Firefly/Serenity. And, y'know, there's actually a lot of interesting stuff you can do with that, but this post was written from a radical feminist point of view, by a lesbian separatist.

And I was just thinking about how EASY radfem is for me to deal with.

See, I'm a man. And so, by lesbian separatist radical feminist logic, I can never understand a woman's point of view. And THAT means that I have no obligation to try.

Now, the way I was raised, I can look at how society is set up, I can see in what ways the deck is stacked to give men more power for being men, I can see how society promotes some sorts of interactions, and values some types of personality traits more than others. In the forms of feminism in which I was raised, I can look at those things, and see if I can find ways to work around them, to change how I think about them, to work to change society to be more equatable, to allow people to be who they are, to respect the contributions of all sorts of people, to value cooperative and consensus-building interactions . . .

But, from a radical feminist point of view, the differences are not cultural, they're inherent, and, as a man, no matter what I do, I won't change.

And that's so cool. That lets me entirely off the hook. By the feminism with which I was raised, I have a responsibility to work toward a more fair and more just world. But by lesbian separatist radical feminism, I can do whatever I want, because, as I have no ability to be different than I am, I have no responsibility to try.

Comments

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

I haven't read this fabled post. I can't do any flavor of "separatist" feminism, though, not only because I have so many male friends, but because it rules out a place for anybody on the genderqueer spectrum at the table. No can do. Cannot separate one part of my self from another.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Cliquez ici

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

...wow.

I don't know the series, but I think I now know as much as I need to about the poster. In response to a very polite inquiry from a gay man requesting to comment? "I don't hate your sex, I hate your gender. If you don't understand what I mean by that then go and do your feminist homework before attempting to take up space on my blog."

...just wow. This is NOT my idea of feminism, or indeed any -ism that can be considered anything but bigotry.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

*shakes head* And this is supposed to be intelligent discourse? Please.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

crikey. I had to go back and look for that one. There were a few others (can't find them easily) where she shut down discussion by saying the post was about misogyny in firefly and not lesbian separatism, so neener.

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

I'm too tired to have much google-fu at the moment, but there are definitely articles written by über-feminists attacking everyone on the trans spectrum.

Their basic argument is that anyone who's assigned female at birth and prefers to identify as male is a traitor to females, and anyone who's assigned male as birth didn't experience growing up as an oh-so-oppressed female thus is unable to possibly be accepted into the group of victim-playing wymmmyyynn.

Because, yanno, the best way to work toward equality and understanding is to alienate as many people as possible, especially those who are likely to be much more like-minded than not. Blech.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Their basic argument is that anyone who's assigned female at birth and prefers to identify as male is a traitor to females

... No, I've never run into that before. *coughsoc.bicough*

I've actually been told that since I was born with female bits, I was "socialized" female, and so I'm "allowed" to be a feminist and support feminist causes, while anyone born with a peeeeeniss is "not allowed" to do either one. That's all it took for me to say "Then you'll never see me using that label for myself. That's a sexist attitude and I'm not going to support it."

What blew me away was how shocked and surprised the people giving me "permission" were by my reaction. They're just as sexist as any misogynist male, and they keep screeching and screaming so they don't have to admit their sexism. Funny, that - only not really funny at all.