So…Who’s A Feminist, Anyway???

Blogging While Black/Latin@, Love Me, I'm A Liberal...NOT!!!, Real Left Bloggers April 29th, 2008

So now, Blackamazon has decided to shut it down as well.

Yet another voice of passion and reason…gone.

You’d think that some people would have learned their lesson when Brownfemipower left the stage….but no.

When the hell will some feminists get the point that you can’t call yourself a “feminist” claiming to represent all women, while ignoring and devaluing the valid criticisms of half the women’s population???

I may have had plenty of disagreements with BfP and BA, but they represent, in my view, the absolute BEST of progressive activism; they were willing to stare the enemy right in their faces and call them out on their nonsense.  And they were equally strong on holding their friends and allies accountable as well.

And yet, they ask for and get no special compensation, no A-list blog, no royalty fee from major newspapers…just the chance to see their issues heard and discussed with respect.

But, sad to say, it will be the Amanda Marcottes, the Sam Bergs, the Gloria Steinems — the supposed “superstars” of the liberal feminist Blogtopia — who will get all the publicity, all the glory, all the press copy.

This is what you call “silencing”, folks.

It’s not just the GenderBorg smacking down Ren Ev and threatening to “out” her if she doesn’t shut up about them.

It’s not just the right wing protesting a mouthy feminist getting a column for a Presidential candidate’s website.

And  it sure as all hell isn’t about moaning about a freakin’ book cover of a White woman’s torso, or Photoshopping a woman with a burqa.

It’s simply about shutting your eyes, your ears, and your heart from what WoC are saying, experiencing, and writing about..because they don’t make the A-list of liberal feminist (or radical feminst, or whatever elitist feminist) Blogtopia.

And it’s one of the main reasons I call myself a Libertarian Leftist rather than a liberal.

Because in my view, liberals who attempt to play themselves as the sole vanguard against The Right while adapting the same hierarchial rules to govern those who they claim to represent are as much the problem as the actual right-wingers themselves.

And if feminists can’t handle the criticique of folks like BfP and BA (and Ren Ev, and Nina Hartley, and Jill Brenneman, and other outlaw feminists who really do attempt to represent the non-privileged majority of womankind), then how in the hell can they expect to face off against the full force of the Right??

I may be a man, but I consider myself a supporter of feminism as a movement for women’s equality and justice. But a feminism that only reflects the privileged White few and projects their myopias and fantasies on the rest of humanity is as bad, in my opinion, as the Religious Right, or any MRA creep.

When we as progressives and radicals forget where we came from, and deviate one bit from the basic principle that ALL people are human and entitled to basic fundamental rights and responsibilities and resources to help them live their own lives; then we might as well give ourselves away to the reactionaries.

If a freakin’ right-leaning Libertarian can get that, why can’t you, Seal Press??  Amanda?? Hugo?? Bueller??  Bueller??

Tags: ,

1 Comment