Radical Feminism
Is Real Feminism
Bev Jo
Part 1
We shouldn’t even have to call our culture and politics “Radical Feminism” when it once was simply feminism. Real Feminism.
There is so much misinformation designed to deliberately confuse women and girls about what feminism is, that we have to keep re-explaining, to tell the truth. Diluting feminism to make it more palatable is a mistake. Feminism is not a cult that needs fantasies and lies to protect it. Girls and women are hungry for the truth. And the earth is literally running out of time.
Another reason to clearly describe Radical Feminism is to support the women who are heartbroken by the harm that women do to other women in the name of Radical Feminism. (And do not forget that sometimes the worst is by men posing as women). When we know exactly what Radical Feminism is, then we know that women who are trolling and giving feminism a bad name are not real Radical Feminists.
So what is Radical Feminism? Radical Feminism, and particularly Radical Lesbian Feminism, takes feminism to its logical conclusion. While reformist/liberal/ mainstream feminism is about pleading for equal rights so a few privileged women can get a piece of the rotten patriarchal pie at the expense of most women, Radical Feminism frees us from that mess, which is why it’s so threatening to women benefiting personally from patriarchy.
Radical Feminism is what we know when all the patriarchal censors on our minds are gone and the fear of retribution is ignored. Radical means more than the root — it means going beyond all the lies we were taught, recognizing that patriarchy is built on deception. When the lies are exposed, then patriarchal control of girls’ and women’s minds dissolves.
Radical Feminism means recognizing that patriarchy, and males as a group, being at war with the earth and all females. The propaganda/lie is that it has always been this way and always will be, and that females inevitably belong to males. But, though male supremacy has destroyed many species and the environment in a relatively short time, it has not always existed.
Yes, the logical extreme of Radical Feminism is Lesbian Separatism, which means choosing to have no contact with males whenever possible. (No, this is not a privileged choice. Some of the most oppressed women are Dyke Separatists. After all, the inspiration for Lesbian Separatism was the Separatism of other oppressed political movements.) But this does not mean that there are no het Radical Feminists. There is a continuum of Radical Feminism, with some basic politics we share.
In the late Sixties and early Seventies, Radical Feminism was an international movement of females of all ages who were fighting patriarchy. This was before we had our own books, so our movement relied on articles passed around and on newspapers. Some women now are discovering Radical Feminism the same way, inspired by their own and friends’ minds and experiences. Blogs and facebook groups help (although there are also many confusing troll groups to avoid).
When I object to Radical Feminism being appropriated, I’m asked, “Who are you to define Radical Feminism?” (This reminds me of when I’ve been asked who am I say a man is not a Lesbian.) Well, I’ve been a Radical Feminist with no selling out and no diluting or flipping my politics for longer than anyone else I know. That doesn’t mean I’m the only one, but considering that I helped create Radical Lesbian Feminism and am still here, I have the right to defend my life and our community from the constant attacks on us.
I saw it. I was there. I remember it.
I became a Radical Lesbian Feminist in 1970 when I was 19, and have since witnessed the dilution and destruction of much of our powerful Women’s Liberation Movement and Radical Feminism.
We know what went wrong and we know how to fix it. But we need absolutely safe, female-only space, which we no longer have. In the past, feminists protected each other from male intrusion. Now, when we try to meet, whether in person or online, we are diverted by men perving on us, and by the women who help shove them down our throats. Even worse, feminism and women ourselves are being defined out of existence.
I object. I object to our Radical Feminist movement and culture being appropriated, parasitized, and gutted. I object when men do it, claiming to be Radical Feminists and demanding we accept them as women. And I object when women who are not Radical Feminists do it, setting themselves up as the leaders of our movement, misrepresenting our politics, policing women to accept their distorted version of Radical Feminism, and harassing actual Radical Feminists who object. Our movement and community is not theirs to steal.
If you’ve been drawn to feminism but still feel like an outsider because you are seeing some of the same heterosexist, racist, classist, and other oppressive crap that is in the rest of patriarchy, know that that is not true Radical Feminism but a posturing imitation.
We have lost too many good-hearted women who are longtime Radical Feminists or who are new and trying to find Radical Feminism. We can disagree and still learn from each other and make new friendships, as long as we argue respectfully and with care.
Just as there is a clear definition of “female,” there is a clear definition of true Radical Feminist politics as developed for almost fifty years. We will all have differing ideas of what Radical Feminism is, but this is what some of us believe:
Definition of Radical Feminism
1. We know our history. Radical Feminism means recognizing that patriarchy is built on female-hating, rape, and gynocide and that there is on ongoing war against all girls, women and the earth herself. Male supremacist rule has not always existed, but, in a relatively short time, has destroyed many species and the environment. We are running out of time. The propaganda is that it has always been this way and that females simply belong to males. (Try to find anywhere in the media, schools, etc. that this lie is not promoted.) Radical Feminism is about eliminating patriarchy. Wanting only to get a better deal from patriarchy is not Radical Feminism.
2. Radical Feminism is connected to Radical Lesbian Feminism and
is an inclusive, diverse movement that welcomes all females without hierarchies. We say no to everything which hurts females and is unjust. Of course males are our oppressors, but they have also set up hierarchies giving privilege to some women to encourage them to collaborate against more oppressed women. We do not participate in continuing the divisions that men have created and which keep women apart. We recognize and fight those divisions.
Acknowledging and fighting all oppression among us has been an integral part of Lesbian Feminism from the beginning. (We did not call it “Intersectionality,” which was a later academic dilution of Feminism, but described the hierarchies we are fighting.)
Radical Feminists never deny the reality and harm of classism, racism, ethnicism, heterosexism/Lesbian-hating, ableism, ageism, fat oppression, looksism, imperialism, nationalism, capitalism, etc. in patriarchy and among ourselves. Women who say that women cannot oppress each other are not Radical Feminists. If differences in power aren’t fought, then the status quo power structure that men set up continues among us. Defending privileged women’s power to oppress other women keeps the more privileged cultures dominant among us and leads to a segregated movement.
3. Radical Feminists are not reformist, liberal, mainstream, or right wing “feminists.” We oppose any dilutions of feminism, including re-writing our history.
Part of what has damaged our movement is women (usually privileged) who are not feminists trying to take over our culture, and then arrogantly lecturing us about what Radical Feminism is. Either they are deliberately undermining the Women’s Liberation Movement on behalf of men, or they have no idea what it is. Some of these women may appear to be Radical Feminists, but reveal themselves when they go against basic feminist tenets.
4. Radical Feminists are unafraid to see males for who they are, including all the ways they mark territory, from man-splaining to rape to war to using pesticides on our water, food, earth…. Language is one example. Men and even women emulating men will triumphantly shout “I nailed it!” But that term is not just used for winning, but also for fucking and killing. Radical Feminists notice language and try to not participate in any language that harms us.
Even just watching how men touch girls and women is marking. Some famous men have written that they won’t wash their hands after using the toilet because it gives them an edge with marking people when shaking hands. Women need to have no illusions about what males do that is unthinkable to women. (See Endnote.)
5. Radical Feminists do not proselytize for men (especially not men claiming to be women or Lesbians), religions, heterosexuality, bisexuality, sado-masochism, porn, etc. Radical Feminists do not make excuses for males in their oppression of females, or believe that males can be feminists or allow them into feminist spaces. (Men who want to support us can organize elsewhere, but their history is not good in terms of being sincere.)
Radical Feminists don’t pretend to believe that females and males are basically the same, while liberal/mainstream feminists repeat the dangerous myth that raping, torturing, and killing are somehow caused by “socialization” rather than innate biological difference — even though male violence can easily be seen in many other animal species. The truth is all around us, and our other animal sisters know better than most women that that is the norm for males. http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/animals-can-be-giant-jerks (Typical male writer misses the point that rape is about maleness but the information is revealing.)
The mistaken belief in “socialization” leads once again to women devoting even more time to change males. It has never worked and never will. It also adds to the dangerous myth that men are oppressed by patriarchy too.
http://thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/its-just-socialization/
http://thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/its-just-socialization-revisited/
Of course there are differences in brains, and the biological, physical, mental, and emotional differences between females and males are obvious. Some “feminists” react to our saying this to mean that somehow males should not be held accountable for the crimes they commit, when we are saying the opposite. Also, believing that there are no intrinsic differences leads to believing men could be women.
6. Radical Feminists never genuflect to the trans cult line that men can be women or Lesbians. This con has been one of the most destructive things done to females and our movement. (After some of these men didn’t get the attention they expected for pretending to be women, they appropriated yet another oppressed identity. So we also do not accept “trans-paraplegic” able-bodied men who demand to be accepted as paraplegic, or “trans-racial” white men who use surgery and drugs to look African, or any other narcissistic appropriation of oppressed people. Note how ridiculous this becomes: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/topic/tiamat/ ,
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/man-spends-over-30k-transform-elf ,
Saying no to the trans cult includes refusing to affectionately call them “transfolk” or any other terms that give credence to the idea that they are somehow more special than other misogynist female impersonators. Radical Feminists never call men “women” of any kind or “she” or “her,” or call women “men.” This is a crucial dividing line.
Radical Feminists also do not feel sorry for these men, which is the biggest hook the trans cult uses. We are not confused about who and what these men are. If they truly cared about women, they would not have gotten into power positions in our last organizations and have destroyed our last women only space. They would also not be preying on young Lesbians in “LGBTQ” groups.
We do not believe they are more in danger than women are, as they claim to be, especially considering how much they themselves target us in very male ways with threats of rape, mutilation and death. (And why is it women’s work to protect men from being attacked by other men?) We do not support anything they demand. We are aware that men claiming to be women are included in statistics on “female” violence, making it appear that women are as violent as men. We don’t know how many assaults and murders they have committed, but it looks like it’s more even than what regular het male violence. (GenderTrender is a great resource for this information.) https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/?s=violence+statistics
7. Radical Feminist never believe that women can be men. And we also do not continue the myth that the women who most likely to want to be men are Butches. Most F2Ts are Fem and many are het women who want sexual access to gay men.
8. Radical Feminists have no leaders, no stars, no hierarchies. When I first came online, I was shocked by how many women seemed afraid to give their opinions without quoting some famous feminist writer. In the Seventies, Lesbian Feminists were so opposed to stars that many writers refused to sign what they wrote or signed only with their collective name, as I did with Dykes and Gorgons. (However, that ended up working against the class-oppressed writers, who have been more erased from our history.) Women need to trust the value of their own ideas.
9. Radical Feminists discuss with respect and kindness and caring, and do not try to injure who they disagree with. Real Radical Feminists do not lie, slander, manipulate, play games, name-call, ridicule, taunt, insult, threaten, bully, abuse, or use oppression against other women (such as using classist or racist terms aimed to humiliate women oppressed by classism or racism.)
How pretender “feminists” deal with disagreements and conflict reveal who they really are. They do not argue with mutual respect. They can’t, since their arguments aren’t valid. They don’t know how to deal with women who talk back, so they just keep trying to dominate and eliminate us. They show how comfortable they are in feeling superior, and the glee with which they harm other women reveals how much their politics are not valid. Unfortunately, they do drive many women away.
10. Radical Feminists do not lie. Pretenders make up the most bizarre lies to erase us. One lie that has gone on for decades is that Dyke Separatists live in the country and so are privileged. Please just read our chapter in our book. https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/chapterfivelesbians-for-lesbians-dyke-separatism/ I’ve been a Separatist longer than anyone else I know and have never lived in the country and have lived my entire adult life below the poverty line in cities. We know that lying is often projection as well as an attempt to erase us. If someone says that only the most privileged women can be Separatists, then that’s a way to convince women to not even have to think about what Lesbian Separatism really is. And that is typical troll gaslighting/mindfuck.
11. Radical Feminism both gives women credit and holds women accountable for the choices we make. Denial of our power in making choices is a serious dilution of feminism. Being oppressed does not mean having no choices. Women feel powerless and victimized as it is. Saying no to males is one of the most important and powerful choices we can make.
Who does it serve for women to push the patriarchal and gay male agenda that Lesbians were “born this way,” ignoring the Lesbian Feminists of the past who proudly said we choose to love women? The offensive, trivializing term “sexual orientation,” which is applied to Lesbians, but never to het women, makes Lesbians once again be just about “sex,” ignoring the enormous price Lesbians pay for choosing to love women and saying no to men. That is exactly the heart/mind/body/spirit disconnect that women who choose men have learned from their men, while choosing to love our own kind threatens patriarchy at its core.
12. Radical Feminist do not agree with defining collaborators as “victims.”
13. Radical Feminists welcome discussion about past betrayals of our community and do not censor Radical Feminists who are more radical or ban women from groups without good reason. Radical Feminists explain those reasons and do not lie about them. Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it and, even worse, condemn us to repeat it. Those who try to prevent discussion about the past that is relevant to us now are harming our community.
The personal is political. We need to know which women supported men and the trans cult against Radical Feminists. We need to know who has a history of oppressing women in order to bully and intimidate. We need to know who lies and edits and erases threads against group rules and uses online bans to eliminate evidence in an attempt to rewrite history. Who wants the truth and our history hidden?
14. Radical Feminist are not afraid to learn how we’ve been conned into participating in our own and other females’ betrayal. This means scrutiny of the media and patriarchal rules that women use to obey males and police other women. Some of the cons, like male-identified femininity, run so deep that women have assumed it is a natural part of themselves. Some believe this is trivial, but it actually is a major reason into why most women keep obeying male rules. (And also why they accept the trans propaganda. Looking “like a woman” superficially, by glorifying what demeans us, is “proof” of real womanhood.)
Once, feminists were dedicated to unlearning all male lies, but that’s part of what we lost. Unlearning femininity, like unlearning classism and racism, is integral to being Radical Feminist. Being afraid to give up the privilege of femininity is extremely revealing because it goes much deeper than fear of losing status.
15. Radical Feminists take language and meaning seriously. I don’t mean we make trivial changes like changing the spelling of women and history, but make deeper changes. We do not substitute one kind of male language or attitudes for another in an effort to appear radical. Men refer to their vile testicles to denote courage, but mainstream “feminists” play their game by referring to ovaries instead. Do they really think women who’ve had their ovaries removed aren’t as courageous as women who haven’t? Why not go further and say no to all of it?
16. Radical Feminists don’t have double standards where they reprimand other women for doing what they allow for themselves or their lover or friends.
17. Radical Feminism is about community and commitment, not dabbling or playing in radical politics as rebellion or for self-centered, selfish gain. When someone says something that is being done to another woman doesn’t concern them, they are not a Radical Feminist. Caring for each other is Radical Feminism, and that means fighting what is harming us.
Radical Feminism
Part II
The Cons and Lies, and Ruling by Terror
We need a truly Radical Feminist movement that welcomes all girls and women, where we can finally talk about the most radical of feminist politics, so we go as far as possible with our ideas, observations, and conclusions. We want the women who have been isolated and marginalized to know they are not alone and that they have finally come home.
In the Seventies, feminism was targeted by media ridicule and misrepresentation in order to confuse girls and women into rejecting even the thought of feminism. Now, it’s more difficult because porn and sado-masochism are mainstreamed as “feminism.”
Parasitized pretend feminism tells women to stop questioning and thinking, and to accept lies that can be comfortingly similar to the regular patriarchal cons. Real Radical Feminism is about questioning everything that we are told is “reality” or “just the way things are.” Radical Feminism shakes patriarchy to its core because it calls for the very ending of patriarchy.
That terrifies the pretend “radfems” because ending patriarchy means giving up their privilege. I say to the female pretenders gutting Radical Feminism, as I say to the male pretenders — call yourselves whatever you want, but stop trying to steal our name, our movement, our culture, and then parasitizing it for your own use.
I say the same to those who “don’t want to know” what harm a troll is doing to Radical Feminism and to individual women — please be responsible enough to recognize that we cannot have a movement of women who don’t care about each other — and if that troll, whether a paid agent or someone who just enjoys their game of power and pitting women against each other, is not named, held accountable, and stopped, then she will eventually hurt you too.
A major difference between Radical Feminism and pretend feminism is that we think of ourselves as community. What is done to one of us is done to all. If we fight only for ourselves and our interests individually, we not only have no movement, we have no culture or community.
Patriarchy is about individuals competing so they keep people pitted against each other and caring only about themselves. Radical Feminism is the opposite. We care for and protect each other. It is never about “Oh I like her and she hasn’t hurt me yet, so I don’t really care if she is classist, racist, Lesbian-hating, etc.” Of course you never just believe something seriously upsetting about another women without verifying if it’s true (because the trolls thrive on lies and slander), so look for yourself to see the evidence. Listen to those being harmed and ask the oppressor/troll their side of it. Often a mild disagreement brings out their rage and they quickly will be abusive to you too. If you are afraid of them, that should tell you something. Since I went to an all-girls high school where the girls were mostly very kind and caring to each other, I never understand when feminists say the cliques and exclusion among feminists are like high school. But that has been a lot of women’s experience, so I do believe some women are playing out the same dynamics from high school of in-groups and outsiders, where most want to belong, while a ringleader decides who is to be banned and ostracized. The result is a hierarchy based on fear so some women go along with targeting other women simply to not be targeted themselves. (Many of the girls and later women also competed with each other over males, and those dynamics are also brought into our feminist community.)
Liberal/reformist/mainstream “feminists” interfere when they constantly undercut Radical Feminism with illogical comments to “prove” it’s impossible to really say no to patriarchy. For example, when we mention some of the ways that women could end patriarchy — such as by refusing to be het and refusing to reproduce – the pretenders’ patronizing responses deny reality, saying women don’t have access to abortions (just stop fucking then), or that we want all humans to die out (as if that’s likely with the population already over seven billion), or that men would enslave us all. Seriously? How is that about to happen where many of us live, and so isn’t it even more important to say no when women in other countries are killed for resisting?
Reformism does not go past fantasy into reality. As painful as knowing the truth of reality, Radical Feminism is the only way to actually eliminate patriarchy and male violence towards all females and the earth. Some women are terrified to become Radical Feminists because they think they have to be angry all the time, but the truth is that it is ultimately very freeing. Women are already angry. When we hide that anger even from ourselves, we end up turning it against ourselves and each other. Knowing the truth and our real options is an incredible relief. And also women then don’t waste time on males.
Some of my friends are with men they trust. I try not to worry for them. “Exceptional” men might exist, but more likely they haven’t been caught or haven’t taken the risk to rape. (Remember how Ted Bundy was considered the ideal man?) I always say that we never know what a boy or man is doing when he is alone with human babies or animals. There certainly are enough male horror stories. I know a Lesbian whose friends caught their male gardener raping their dog. A dear friend was abused by her mother’s boyfriend, who was known to have orally raped his baby daughter to death. None of this is rare. Almost every woman I know has been sexually assaulted as a girl and/or adult, often multiple times. All have been sexually harassed. This isn’t about “crazy” or “sick” men. These are men who measure “normal” on psychological tests. And even if some men are trustworthy, why do some women who claim to be feminists spend so much energy trying to find them, making them more important than women?
Ironically, men know about other males and often will be quite honest when talking about how dangerous they can be. One male psychologist recommends never allowing adolescent boys to babysit. Michael Moore, the documentarian, said on television, “We want to fuck anything in front of us.” Meanwhile, too many women ridicule being wary of males as sexual predators and say it’s oppressive to even think it.
Real Radical Feminists are motivated by love for other females. Hatred for those who harm us comes afterward. A woman who believes the trivializing, superficial stereotype that feminism is primarily about hatred of men rather than love for females is a woman who is more likely to betray us. Sometimes het women who are trying to bond with me send me bizarre images of men being tortured, assuming I’ll like that. I’d rather not think about males at all, if they would just leave us and the earth alone. When a “radfem’s” masthead and posts focus primarily on hating men, I’m wary because “she” seems like a troll. (I’m thinking of one “woman” in particular who has no images of herself or friends on her page, uses Valerie Solanas’ photo as her avatar, and has a masthead of a woman wearing a see-through, black, lacey bra with tiny men hanging by her armpit hair. That just looks like a man’s fantasy of a man-hating feminist. The posts seem like trying too hard to prove she/he is a Radical Feminist. Plus, a lot of the women we later find out are trolls use the photos or names of famous dead feminists.)
For our own safety, we need to recognize who is and who isn’t truly Radical Feminist. Men can’t ever be women, so they also can’t be Radical Feminists, but a woman who is not yet a Radical Feminist could yet become one, which keeps us hooked in to trying to reach them. But no matter how theoretically good a woman’s politics are, if she is oppressive and insulting, there is nothing to work with. Trying repeatedly to accept or get through to bullies and trolls is done at the expense of real Radical Feminists who need our support. Trolls bleed us dry as they drive women out of our movement. It’s almost as bad as trying to reach men.
I never fully understand why some women claim to be Radical Feminists who aren’t, but it’s the same reason women claim to be Dyke Separatists when they aren’t – some sincerely are drawn to the truth, while believe it’s a trendy way to feel superior as the “most radical” and to bully other women. Of course real Radical Feminists are a constant reminder that they are frauds, so they are determined to silence and eliminate us, which is similar to how the trans cult tries to erase female existence. Mind-fuck is nothing new. Truth and facts are irrelevant when it comes to fighting dirty.
Re-defining Radical Feminism is also similar to how the words “Lesbian” and “Dyke” have been re-defined to include bisexuals, het women, and even men. They also attempt to divide us into “waves.” “Second Wave” is used to refer to real Radical Feminists, while the “Third Wave” are not feminists at all, but are presented as if they are the logical evolution of feminism. This plays on ageism (with young anti-feminists being called “Third Wave” as if there has been a break in the continuity of our movement), while ignoring that real Radical Feminists do not have an age divide. I refuse to use these divisive, meaningless terms. https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/ageism/
Reformist/mainstream/liberal “feminists” trying to get a better deal from patriarchy often means accepting male goals and betraying women. That has led to segregated “communities” where more oppressed women are treated like dirt and are condemned to “knowing their place” or are not allowed in at all (Doesn’t sound too different from how the right wing or Male Left treats women, does it?). Women invested in patriarchy don’t want to make real changes because they will lose their privilege. I mean, my god, if patriarchy ends, what good is that law degree, and how will they keep their servants? That isn’t even describing the rich, but simply the middle class who don’t think of their housecleaners, gardeners, dog-walkers, home organizers, self-help gurus, masseuses, nannies, etc. as “servants.” I’m not talking about disabled women who need help, but about those who could at least clean their own toilets if they are hiring cleaners. They solve the embarrassment of seeing their Radical Feminist servants at “radfem” events by making the event unaffordable for anyone but the most privileged. It took me a while to recognize that having servants is “normal” for them since most grew up with servants.
Every year, I see how glaring the class differences are in the remnants of my old Lesbian Feminist community. I never thought I’d see women hiring other women to work at below minimum wage (and saying their servants don’t mind because they enjoy working for them!), or women charging astronomical amounts for rent in what is substandard illegal housing in their garages or basements. Yes, men and het women have been taking advantage of the increasing homeless for years, but I never expected to see “Lesbian Feminists” I know doing this. https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/classism/
Some of the mercenaries left our Lesbian community to return to patriarchy to get more privilege, but others stayed when they found a way to make careers off us. They brought academia, heterosexism, porn, sado-masochism, and genderqueer propaganda into our Lesbian Feminist community at the end of the Seventies. The main “Lesbian” sexologists, pornographers, and promoters of sado-masochism, like Pat Califia and JoAnn Loulan, were bisexuals who made money off their “Lesbian Sex” books and workshops, while defining us out of existence. At first, Califia was clever enough to use classic Lesbian Feminist terminology like “womyn” and “womon” to sell us Samois and sado-masochism. Similarly, many of the men who insist they are Lesbians call themselves “feminists” and even “Radical Feminists.” (Those two female-hating cults merged when Pat Califia claimed to be a “gay transman.”) https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/
Censoring Real Radical Feminism
One way I differentiate who is radical from mainstream is how they react to “givens.” Do they just believe things we are told in patriarchy or do they question? Do they join in mainstream put-downs like calling women “anti-vaxxers” or “conspiracy theorists,” or do they think about why those women don’t trust the medical industry or government? https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/a-chance-to-survive-cancer-doctors-are-not-god/
If they question mainstream beliefs, do they then believe the supposed alternative or do they go further? Refusing to believe in a god does not mean believing in a goddess, or saying “oh goddess” instead of “oh god” when swearing. Another example is refusing the most harmful forms of cancer “treatment” does not mean that the only other option in trying to survive is becoming vegan or to go to a fraud “alternative” clinic that costs a fortune.
I definitely see more questioning by women who are marginalized (like by classism and racism) and those who are not from the US. If a “Radical Feminist” believes government propaganda about history, assassinations, “terrorist” acts and even health misinformation, then she is going to be limited about how much she will explore Radical Feminist ideas. This is based on how invested she is in the patriarchal system. When an issue of feminism becomes confusing, always look to see if the problem is because the women disagreeing are deeply invested in males or patriarchy.
Again, the goal is to divide us and too many unthinkingly join in, so they will be accepted. I know some older Lesbian Feminists who patronizingly call young Lesbian Feminists “kids,” implying they are less wise or radical when that is not true. (That particular insult was used against me even when I was in my fifties by my mother since I was never going to be a “real” adult to her because I hadn’t gotten married or reproduced.)
The new anti-feminists pretend Feminism is a cult where no thinking is allowed. Women who dare question male values are immediately shamed into mindlessly obeying. They then are trained to police other women who step out of line.
Real Radical Feminists are censored and silenced, patronized, called “stupid” and are told we need “educating” (who do they think invented our movement?) or that we are “old-fashioned” (this erases young Radical Feminists and ignores that truth doesn’t change with time.) In a desperate attempt to shame us into silence, we are even called “misogynist” with no explanation – which are the same tactics and words that the trans cult uses against women who say no to them. It’s all projection. Just look at the issues being discussed and our history, and it’s absolutely clear.
One of the most destructive things I’ve seen is the gutting of our old politics of holding women accountable for harming other women. Women pretending to be Radical Feminists can be incredibly racist, classist, Lesbian-hating and otherwise oppressive online, yet it’s ignored or tolerated. Only the most courageous will confront or unfriend them. Any attempt for justice is answered with accusations that trivialize the seriousness of the betrayal as “horizontal hostility” or being “unsisterly,” etc. Some feminists say how heart-breaking the “infighting” among women is, but objecting to women being overtly, deliberately oppressive is not “infighting” since infighting happens only among members of the same movement. It helps protect us as a community, and protects our hearts individually, to recognize clearly that the women dismantling Radical Feminism are not part of our movement or culture. Unless we say no to everything that harms women, we end up agreeing to our own destruction.
Some of this is because some women confuse conflict with being mean. Not obeying middle class bland, cold, dishonest culture, which often is about being cruel while pretending to be phony “nice,” is not the same as being oppressive. Similarly, playing “polite” when dealing with male rules and using “etiquette” to obey the trans cult especially backfires.
We already know that there are trolls in our online international Radical Feminist movement. Some have been revealed to be MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) but others are women betraying our movement and playing a double game. Too often the women trolls get into positions of power, and even name themselves our leaders. When they are exposed, they just start new pretend “radfem” or Radical Feminists groups, and often real Radical Feminists, not wanting to be left out of the cliques, join, ignoring what these women have done, and so give credibility to the troll groups, draining our movement.
At online sites, the “radfem” imposters will ban you and then lie to explain your disappearance. Other women in the group withdraw in terror of being the next to be banished. (By the way, if anyone does hear bizarre misrepresentations of my politics, feel free to ask for the truth.) Many online feminists are isolated and lonely, and fear rejection. It’s in women’s nature to be social and want a community of friends. Yet too often the price of joining the cliques gutting real Radical Feminism is agreeing to abandon common sense.
“Radfem” versus Radical Feminist
Of course not all women who name themselves “radfems” are fake Radical Feminists, but still, “radfem” is the newer trendy word used by some of the snobbish cliques who are opposed to original Radical Feminist politics. Yes, “radfem” is an abbreviation, but so is RF (Radical Feminist) and so is the trivializing term “women’s lib,” which no feminist would ever use.
It’s easy enough for pretend Radical Feminists to read our extensive history. When they say what we’ve done hasn’t worked, telling us to weaken our politics, they are ignoring how governments and media and Men’s Rights Activists have been undermining us for decades, as well as have the majority of women who betray females for males. With the worldwide change in economics, many more Radical Feminists are poor and barely surviving now than in 1970, which has made it very hard to organize. In the Seventies in Oakland and Berkeley, rooms rented in Radical Feminist group houses were $50 a month, and houses $100. Spaces could be easily rented for women only events where we could do political work and socialize. Since surviving was cheaper, Radical Feminists had more time. Nothing was wrong with our movement and politics, considering a handful of women were fighting all of patriarchy and creating an entirely new culture. What Radical Feminists did all over the world was amazing and we continue.
Then we lost our spaces and publications. The internet provides a whole other way to meet and share support across the earth, but some women wanting fame started blogs plagiarizing feminists’ writing from decades earlier, forming elitist cliques with their own “radfem” language that automatically excludes true Radical Feminists and requires those wanting to join to submit to the humiliation of asking what the bizarre terms mean, even if they were the original writers of the plagiarized work. Some of these “radfems” avoided being questioned about the hypocrisy in their own lives by presenting themselves as courageous man-haters while still keeping their own “exceptional” men (as feminists used to sarcastically say.)
One of the most quoted of these privileged pretend “radfems” admits she came to feminism as a “funfem” (women who participated in the female-hating pseudo feminism that men promote, such as glorifying male-invented “femininity,” porn, and sado-masochism.) She’s a cruel, racist, classist, and heterosexist bully who loves to ridicule and particularly enjoys targeting Lesbians. We have no idea how many girls and women we lost from our movement because they were searching for feminism and ended up being her victim. When I first saw her referred to reverentially, I asked what she had said that made her so worshipped and was told in almost hushed tones that she was writing against “PIV.” (That’s “penis in vagina,” as if the women who choose men are so fragile that they must use a twee euphemism instead of “fuck.”) But why act as if this issue was something new when it had been extensively and more radically written about as basic feminism almost fifty years ago? I believe it was her and other bloggers’ het privilege that gave them more authority and appreciation since het women are generally far more valued than Lesbians by feminists, including Lesbian Feminists.
No one seemed to notice that the more radical question of why would feminists even be sexual/intimate with men was completely ignored, since patriarchy literally could not go on without women helping. And that, of course, was because the pretend “radfem” bloggers certainly did not want to lose their het privilege.
Even worse for Radical Feminism, it somehow became a crime to question women’s choices, which had been the basis of even liberal feminism in the Seventies. To further deflect, gaslight, and mind-fuck, the new parasitized feminism’s rules say that not only are women’s choices not to be questioned, but that women have no choices!
Radical Feminism
Part III
Choices
Radical Feminists question everything we are told we have no choice about, including one of our most important, life-changing decisions, which is whether to love other women with passion as Lesbians, be bisexual (betraying women to men), be celibate, or be het. This issue brings up some of the most bizarre enraged responses I have ever seen, yet who does it serve to insist that women have no real choice in one of the most important decisions we will ever make? Men.
I recently heard that I’m being called a “homophobe” and “heterosexual” for saying I chose to be a Lesbian, by someone who is twenty years old. (Of course this coward and slanderer isn’t saying this directly to me where I can reply.) I’ve been a Lesbian from my earliest memories, but it’s still a choice, as women who switch back to men show us. It is the natural state of girls and women and I do not believe any woman or girl would choose heterosexuality if there was no patriarchy offering massive rewards (acceptance by family and society is only one part of the pay-offs, as well as feeling “normal” in a culture that despises us.)
Do the women who don’t bother to learn our history really believe what our worst enemies, the psychiatrists of the Fifties, trained the schools, media, families, etc. to believe about us? Experience the hell and ecstasy I’ve gone through to be a Lifelong Lesbian, never once quitting, and tell me I’m “heterosexual” and “homophobic.” (What’s with the ridiculous “phobia” charge? Lesbians are not homosexuals and I’m not afraid of gay men.) Stop lying about and erasing me. And stop taking away the power and courage of my choice to love other girls and then women.
The arguments against our choices are bizarrely convoluted. Some women deliberately confuse rape with voluntary het sex as a way to claim they do not or did not choose heterosexuality. One online group was actually called “PIV Is Rape,” which not only trivializes the horror of actual rape, but defines it out of existence. Of course being fucked by men is harmful to women on many levels, but these women have to know that many liberal “feminists” brag in pornographic detail about loving it. Meanwhile, women who refused to be het are either said to not exist, or are called “lucky” and patronized by the term “gold star.” No, those of us who always said no to men and chose to love other females are not “lucky.” That trivializes the hell we have gone through, including lifetime harassment from other women, which includes “feminists.” And no, the women who did choose men are not more oppressed, but are more privileged because of the status they get. Do they think we don’t remember other girls betraying us for males?
We also remember girlhood friends turning on those of us who refused to join the het cult, name-calling us to cement their new het membership status. Unfortunately, we are now going through a bizarre new version of being punished for saying no to men, only this time it’s on behalf of men who insist they are Lesbians and women. These men would have very little power to harm us, if women were not helping them. I can’t believe some of us have to experience a second time being betrayed by friends and other women over men. https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/chapter-two-heterosexualityselling-out-is-not-compulsory-2/
https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/bev-jo-radical-lesbian-writing/
In the past, when feminism meant questioning all our choices, women’s groups supported each other to leave their men. Anyone saying that women were victims with no choice but to be with men would have been laughed at. Women still with men were quite proud about having gotten a man. Many feminists who came out still endlessly bragged or complained about their ex-husbands and boyfriends, making sure everyone knew it was definitely a choice in order to separate themselves from us “perverted” Lifelong Lesbians.
Politics and movements do not always advance over time. In the Seventies, Lesbian Feminists proudly said they chose to love other women, yet liberal feminists don’t seem to know that the “born this way” theory they so vehemently believe actually originated with our enemies, psychiatrists, who lectured that most women were born het, but a few were born Lesbian because of genetic abnormalities or family trauma. That’s why Lesbians are still questioned about what “happened” to them, such as being sexually assaulted in girlhood – as if that doesn’t happen to the majority of girls.
Only when feminism was overshadowed by later genderqueer/gay male/trans pleading pleaded for equal rights from hets was the “born this way” propaganda reinstated. We still see this “they can’t help it” throughout the media as the main reason given to bigots for why they should accept Lesbians and gay men. (Somehow bisexual choice is ignored in the plea for rights based on pity and so is the fact that most Lesbians once chose to be het.) The old Lesbian Feminist pride of taking responsibility for who we choose to love has almost been completely erased. (Of course loving other females feels natural to us because it is. That doesn’t stop most females from choosing men though, out of fear or to get the status of being “normal.” Never underestimate the powerful pull of being accepted as “normal,” which is even more powerful than the pull of the massive privilege in resources that many het women get from men.)
Why on earth would any kind of feminist want to join with medical and genderqueer misogynists by believing the con that Lesbians are an aberration – other than that it releases het women from the responsibility of admitting they are making a choice rather than believing the lie that they are just “normal?” Interestingly, this game is played in reverse when feminists do start questioning why they chose or choose men over women. Suddenly, they insist they had a traumatic childhood as an explanation for being het. Yet how many of these women still secretly wonder if a Lifelong Lesbian is “that way” because of terrible childhood trauma?
One of the most dangerous examples of anti-feminist het-supremacist propaganda about how all women are helpless victims of all-powerful men – not because of male violence, but because of how “attractive” men are – comes from a much-praised “radfem” blog:
http://witchwind.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/grooming-pimping-into-heterosexuality-politics-of-love-pt-ii/
Even to this day if a man is kind to me or just smiles I can still feel this “attraction” and gratefulness that I’d feel before and tried to get rid of, which simply means that men are still our captors and there’s no way we can completely get away from stockholm syndrome so long as they hold us captive. Which is precisely why I know I have to stay away from them as much as I can…
The reason so many of us trauma-bond so instantly and intensely to men in our proximity and sometimes to just any man that crosses our way, whether we are lesbian, celibate, separatist or “het”, is that we are programmed and groomed to react in this way to male threat since birth.
If I hadn’t seen this kind of woman-hating masquerading as feminism reflected elsewhere, I would have wondered if it was written by a man because of its worship of male power. I have never known a feminist to describe men like this. In the Seventies, men were acknowledged as dangerous, but even liberal feminists wrote about men as repulsive weak fools, delusional in their assumption of women being attracted to them. Mainstream films, like “Nine to Five,” from 1979, depicted men as pompous buffoons who had institutionalized power, but were easily dealt with by smarter and stronger women working together. And that was het feminism. Lesbian Feminism was even more scathing towards men.
This new “radfem” attitude is disturbing on many levels. This writer is so determined to appear as a helpless victim, not of male violence, but of her own uncontrollable “attraction” to men, that she reads almost pornographic in her masochism. She says she must keep away from men, not because she hates them or recognizes how dangerous they are, but because she can’t control herself around them.
Men reading this will love it. It’s bad enough that we have the male media bombarding us with images of women swooning over men, and presenting them as being so powerful that they can just take a gun from a woman’s hand because she is crying too hard to shoot them in self defense. (This scene is never shown in reverse or between two men.) Why would any woman calling herself a “radfem” want women to feel so helpless around men or promote the woman-hating propaganda that all women are captives of men?
Even worse, how dare she implicate Lesbians, celibate women, and especially Separatists in her pervy obsession with men? Any man in front of us and we “trauma-bond?” I don’t know any woman who reacts that way other than the most male-worshipping of women. How dare she erase those of us who do not obey men? Victim Feminism means not taking responsibility for loyalty to males over females. Why can’t she control herself around men? Why isn’t she naturally repulsed by them? And even worse, how dare she completely erase the existence of women who do not feel equally obsessed with men by saying “men are still our captors.”
This is classic mind-fuck/gaslighting. Note she puts “het” into quotes. She ignores the real reason she was with men, which is for the privilege. And saying that women choose men because of “trauma bonding” denies the existence of women who refuse to bond with men in spite of suffering horrific girlhood abuse. The girlhood sexual assault theory again makes Lifelong and Never-het Lesbians as well as many other Radical Feminists invisible. https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/chapter-three-heterosexism-among-lesbians-is-lesbian-hating/
Patriarchy teaches us we have no control over our attractions and choices, but we do. In fact, most girls do feel attraction/love for other girls that they stifle, and then systematically teach themselves to go against nature in transferring those feelings to males. True feminists would never say that women have no control of self-harming or other sado-masochistic feelings that they’ve learned. Anorexia and bulimia aren’t accepted as natural. The assumption is that women must fight those impulses, knowing how and why they came about, and that they are not innate.
She says she is still “aroused” (the word she uses earlier) by pricks. Since most longtime Radical Lesbian Feminists I know rarely think about or talk about men except to acknowledge one more horror they’ve committed, I believe women pushing these victimizing politics are continuing to obsess about men as they have done most of their lives, and are only pretending to want to be done with them. I believe this “radfem” is actually bragging on some level, and is likely to return to the men she can’t stop thinking about. (I’ve certainly seen enough “man-hating” ex-het women do that.)
She actually says: “Sure, PIV is pleasurable, but the political and social prices are not worth it.”
Make up your mind – is it horrific rape or is it a “pleasure” that you choose?
This propaganda is destroying the feminist movement. Why do too many feminists want to deny the reality of the choices on all levels, weakening and disempowering women. Choices are still being made now.
Another “radfem” online commented:
“The fact that all us womyn are thoroughly immersed in Societal Stockholm Syndrome by virtue of having been raised in captivity does NOT mean that we are to be blamed for not freeing ourselves! Always remember that it is the ABUSER, not the victim who is to blame for the abuse, even if the victim has been inculcated into capitulation as her primary mode of coping with her captivity.”
I responded:
“I don’t see women who support men against women as victims. All women are NOT “thoroughly immersed in Societal Stockholm Syndrome” or none of us would be feminists. Many of us said no on various levels.”
We are the victims of those women. Victim feminism has so diluted real feminism that the politics of understanding about collaborators versus resistance fighters is lost. Those who are blamed are those who are the resistance fighters. And of course I never say that women who choose men choose to be abused. I’m saying they choose men for many reasons, including because it means going with the flow, fitting in, feeling normal, etc. A few say they were attracted to men, but the majority I’ve heard say that it was the thing to do and they didn’t question it and they went against their own feelings and so they crushed their love for other women. Some even talk about breaking the hearts of girls who loved them.
What is also forgotten in all this gaslighting is that women who choose men are often quite vicious in competing against other women for men. Women and girls often choose to look grotesquely and unnaturally male-identified feminine not as much to attract men and boys, but to win them against other women and girls.
Again, who most wants women to think we have no choice about our most important choices? Men.
But of course in the new parasitized version of Radical Feminism, no woman is ever to be criticized. (Unless she really IS a Radical Feminist and then she is fair game to be slandered, banned, lied about, etc.) Just keep those women with the most privilege from being disturbed. In fact, forget they exist, so that the most privileged het women, secure in being rich, owning companies and property, having political power and Radical Feminists and other women as servants, must be erased from the mind. Forget you see them in the media or out in the world or in some of your families. Forget the rich women who are film stars who keep helping to increase porn in mainstream films and television. Yes, they make less money than men, but many still make millions. Some of these women are producers, directors, writers, and actors, like Lena Dunham, who normalized the most disgusting scenes imaginable in her television show, “Girls.” Lena’s character’s beloved boyfriend, who continually sexually abused her, is shown graphically wanking off on a woman’s chest while calling her a “whore,” as the woman yells at him to stop. This acclaimed series is lauded as “feminist” and Lena is in full charge.
And then there are women like Miley Cyrus who are continuing the pornographic selling of females to make fame and fortune, in the tradition of Madonna, except that she has far greater influence on young girls, having been a girl media star. These women know exactly what they are doing. But what power they could have to reach girls and women if they stopped selling out.
A Radical Feminist posted in our Radical Feminist group about women who sell their little ten year old girls to men who hire them out to be daily, multiply raped. This is so premeditated that the women first pay to get their daughters medically certified as virgins because then they will make more money selling them. One little girl escaped and went home, but her mother sold her again. Some of the true Radical Feminists in our group responded with outrage, saying they would sell themselves first rather than ever sell their daughters, but others actually lectured us about how oppressed the mothers were, they didn’t have a choice, etc. I wonder at what point they would hold a collaborator accountable.
I’m not surprised by male violence or, at this point, the women collaborators. What is still a shock is women claiming to be Radical Feminists who target us for shaming when we dare to name these crimes, as they lecture us that the collaborators are victims. How do they think that makes the real victims feel? Do they care? Why are they choosing to identify with women who help rapists rather than their victims?
Did this promoting and protecting abusers start with pretend “feminists” or with men? A few years ago, I was at at rally for the fifteen year old Richmond, California girl who had been gang-raped for hours outside her high school dance where a large group of boys and men had texted for their friends to join in. One of the rally organizers said in his speech that “the rapists are victims too.” I did not hear one objection but he was loudly applauded. Can it get worse than this?
We see a parallel with women now defending the US nazis and klan who are becoming a much more serious public threat. I am actually hearing/reading women describe gangs of some of the most privileged men in the US (yuppie young white men) as being “in pain,” to explain their motivations, rather than it being racism, classism, etc. This is extremely similar to the excuses made for rapists and murderers as having been victims in the past, ignoring that if violence were dependent on past trauma, most women would be serial murderers. It is all about turning the oppressor into an oppressed victim. Loss of privilege or imagined loss of privilege does not make someone oppressed.
Policing Radical Feminists who refuse to obey the rules of Victim Feminism erases the existence of many of the most oppressed who have made good choices. What happened to feminists encouraging each other to be strong and take pride in their decisions, instead of playing helpless victims?
If they are honest, most women admit they will not leave men because they don’t want to lose the significant rewards which the rest of us do not have and never had. It’s not just money and property, which can be substantial when so many Lesbians are homeless, but status, including how you feel about yourself with a man on your arm. If a woman can’t bear her family and friends to think that she might be a Lesbian if she leaves her man, what is she thinking about us?
I’ve actually been called “misogynist” and reprimanded for “blaming the victim” when I’ve said that women choose who they love. A bully who gave me the usual patronizing lecture about how women are with men only out of fear, and Stockholm Syndrome, turned out to have her own ”unicorn,” as she calls her man. (Having such a rare man makes her the exceptional woman, doesn’t it?) So how is she a victim? Interestingly, she, like a number of radfems who constantly talk about how evil men are, rarely admit they are with men, deliberately concealing their obvious conflict of interest.
One “radfem” who was posting extremely man-hating posts told the group one day about how nice her husband was. I said, “I’m guessing you are going to be honest, unlike some others, and at least admit that you, as a Radical Feminist with a husband, are choosing to be het.” She actually started to waffle and say she had “Stockholm Syndrome” to make sure she didn’t step out of the cult line of het women as victim only.
It’s as if women no longer believe in an actual right or wrong. We wrote about some of the more outrageous cases of women betraying women and girls for men in our book, like the women who lined up to marry serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy when he was on death row.
Ted Bundy confessed to murdering 23 young females in four U.S. states. He’s suspected of actually murdering over a hundred. He usually vaginally and anally raped his victims before murdering them, and in at least one known instance he forced one girl to watch while he raped and murdered another, before killing her also. Many of the bodies were found decapitated and otherwise mutilated. It’s believed that his first victim was an eight-year-old girl who he killed when he was 14. After he was in jail for two years, a woman named Carol Boone married him. The night before his execution for murdering 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, his mother told him, “You’ll always be my precious son.”
In 1987, Robert Chambers strangled 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. He claimed she was forcing him to have “rough sex” with her and he killed her “accidentally”! Since his family is rich, he was let out on bail. Before the trial even began, he went to a “slumber party” consisting of just him and four women. A videotape of the party, shows the women laughing, dancing, and playing sado-masochistic games with each other and with Chambers. At one point, he holds a Barbie doll up to the camera, twists its head around and says, “Oops, I think I killed her.” In another scene, one of the women plays at being a baby crying and tells him, “I’ll tell everyone.” He says, “I’ll say you’re lying. I lie and they believe me.” These women were also Jennifer’s friends. One of them, Chambers’ new girlfriend, was interviewed on TV. She said she “loved” him, that he was “warm and funny,” and that everyone at the party knew he’d confessed to the murder. She said he’d received over 400 letters of support, many from women. When asked how she felt about the murder, she said, “I don’t feel it’s really my business.”
What about the laughing woman on YouTube who was concerned her fifteen year old son had been raping chickens since he was eleven, not because he was torturing innocent small animals, but because he might get an STD. The boy was shown stroking the chicken as if he loved her, calling her cute, and then showing her cloaca where he rapes her. The announcer says that chickens are easier to get than “girls.” Throughout the video, comparisons are made with consensual heterosexuality. Finally, his mother says she should get him a prostitute, even though she thinks he might have STDs.
A lot of women have experienced horrific abuse as girls by males that their mothers allowed or encouraged for the rapists’ benefit. The rapists are often the victim’s father, step-father, brother, grandfather, uncle, etc. Calling the women who helped the rapists “victims” is a direct betrayal of the real victims, many of who are still vulnerable to these cruel, sadistic women.
Even in patriarchal courts, it’s sometimes acknowledged that the men who help the actual rapist are equally accountable. Of course we reject pleas that the men are victims too. But if excuses are made for women who help men against women, why not excuse the men also? Just as you cannot love both the real victims and their rapist/murderers, you cannot support both the victim and the collaborator.
When a dear friend was seventeen, her mother invited a six foot four foreign military man to stay in her daughter’s room where he raped her until her bed and the walls were bloody. My friend remembers her mother being so set on making her het that she had bought her birth control pills before the extended rape, acting like everything was fine, and afterward mimicked the man’s accent, telling her how easy it would be for him come back and open her window to get inside to rape her again. But that mother is a victim too? Isn’t it clear that excusing her is a horrific betrayal of my friend?
“Victim Feminism” is about patronizing women as too weak, too damaged, and too oblivious to be given credit for and held responsible for the choices that we make all the time. It is the opposite of the empowerment of Radical Feminism. This is partly why the feminist movement seems to have lost much of the incredible sense of excitement and pride in ourselves, as well as and hope for the future.
What I’ve learned from being in Radical Feminist community since 1970 and from moderating Radical Feminist groups online is that there is a major difference between women who really care for other women and the women who use feminism to get power and to bully. If women could recognize the difference, they would be less likely to give up from heartbreak. It’s like recognizing the person you loved for years is not only unwilling to love but is a sociopath. Painful, but far more freeing than believing their lies.
Endnotes
Don’t forget about agents when thinking of the worst betrayals:
When I was first in the Lesbian Feminist community, it was understood that there were government agents reporting back about what we were doing. For those who ridicule this idea, you need to learn our history.
After the US government was embarrassed by not knowing about the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Weather Underground and the Lesbian members, they were not going to let that happen again. If I hadn’t lived in the Bay Area and met Pat Soltysik and Camilla Hall, who joined the SLA and later were burned alive by the LA police, I would have thought that organization was a bizarre joke with their offensive, racist, and even silly “communiques.” Later a Dyke Separatist friend of mine in Wisconsin described being briefly held by the FBI because they thought she was Kathy Soliah from the SLA. Another friend said her ex-lover, the Lesbian singer/songwriter, Kathy Fire, had been raped by men from the FBI, also in the Midwest. When I saw a documentary about Malcolm X where it was mentioned that most of his bodyguards were FBI agents, I was more surprised by them crying about his assassination than that they were FBI agents. (Agents are not always dedicated patriots to right wing governments. More often they will be people wanting money for reporting what they convince themselves is not likely to be relevant information.)
I knew that the French Secret Service had blown up a Greenpeace ship in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand (killing a photographer) to stop them protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific, which was increasing the cancer rate. (I remember the slogan, “If it’s safe, test it in Paris.”) I only recently found out that the agents got credibility in the NZ Leftist community when one of their women posed as a Lesbian, to get into the Lesbian Feminist community. So why wouldn’t agents be in our online Radical Feminist community? Some of the worst trolls fit all the classic agent behavior, from having multiple aliases, game-playing, lying, trolling, posting opposite politics within a few days, targeting some of our most courageous activists, etc.
As Amoja ThreeRivers has written: Please pay special attention to this–There is ALWAYS infiltration of progressive groups by govt agent provocateurs, whose purpose is to create & facilitate inter-group & intra-group chaos, misinformation, enmity, violence & destruction. Anyone who has lived thru the era of Civil Rights, the Black Panthers, the anti-war groups, the Farmworkers, AIM & Cointelpro, & is NOT paranoid is either woefully uninformed or mentally ill. Anytime people try to organize around the betterment of their communities, there is going to be infiltration. You can count on this. I’m not advocating for mistrust, but for awareness. Some of the politics around trans issues, especially as it relates to feminism might be an example of infiltrator mischief. Pay attention, y’all. I’m Old & I can assure you that the day may be different but the shit is still the same.
Another longtime Lesbian Feminist activist wrote:
…you could almost always be sure of an agent somewhere. The other thing we learned they did, from our close relations with other radical groups, was to try to damage and destroy groups. They did this by infiltrating with one to two members, creating dissent, often one proposing a crazy action and the other opposing it. So groups self-destructed. Never be naive. We are being watched, these days probably on the internet too. It’s also police and even corporations who have agents in radical communities. Several women environmental activists were in relationships with some of these agents, including one woman for six years. First, her boyfriend was working for the English police and then for a private agency, reporting on her and her activist friends. This was taken seriously enough that a police commissioner made a public apology and gave compensation.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/20/lisa-jones-girlfriend-of-undercover-police-office-mark-kennedy-interview
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/11/20/how_the_cia_encouraged_citizens_under_occupationhttps://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/CleanedUOSSSimpleSabotage_sm.pdf_to_sabotage_their_workplaces.htm
Men are so charming. In Trump’s the “Art of the Deal” he said he would go to the restroom and not wash his hands because then when he shakes hands with someone they have touched his prick.
Tell us again, why women should welcome men into our restrooms…. Warning, this is incredibly disgusting and will be traumatizing for some women to read. But women who support them need to know the truth:
Bev Jo -- Radical Lesbian Feminist writing 