Feminist Pub VII - Chat, questions, random thoughts too small for a thread ...

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just setting this up while we finish off the last few posts on the old thread. Come in and pull up a bar stool!

(Sorry, by 'this' I mean your mother's reaction.)

It was absolutely NOT your fault Cailin I am so angry on your behalf with your mother. She should NOT have made you feel so ashamed about your abuse, you were a child, you couldn't have prevented it at all.

Cailin

I am so sorry Cailin. What happened to you when you were a child and what happened to you when you were raped, were not your fault. Your mother was entirely wrong in her reaction to you. Some mothers do that, they hush you up so that they can maintain their realities, so that you remain 'nice' because remaining 'nice' is more important than remaining mentally healthy.

If your mother had validated what happened to you. Admitted it was horrible, would she not also be admitting she had failed to protect you? So easier to make it seem like you are the problem I think.

My mother doesn't acknowledge the DV in the house or the I was abused. Because if she did she'd have to say she let it happen.

I think sometimes they aren't gaslighting you they are gaslighting themselves.

Is the stately homes thread still going, you might find some comfort there?

Question for the pub. Do any of you identify as radical feminists? I would say I don't because I don't feel worthy of calling myself one. I don't do enough reading, or activism and am not as well versed on it as I should be. But I suspect if I were to educate myself properly, I probably would be one (iyswim). I find it quite sad the word seems to be frequently used as an insult, so don't want to be one of the ones who distances themselves from it. I also don't want to water it down though either. So if you don't call yourself one can I ask why?

No, I don't. I am not that academic in my feminism to identify as a particular type of feminist.

Thanks everyone.

RFFU - I get what you mean about gaslighting. But I don't think that's it. I told her when I was 19 but it was clear from what she said that she knew what happened and didn't think it was bad at all. She made out that I was upset about nothing and that I should just get over it.

At heart, she really believed that a grown man using me for sexual pleasure was just something to be expected and I was being dramatic by getting upset over it. Everything in her life and behaviour betrays the fact that she believes men can do anything they please while women must run around and make everything better.
And yet she is bitter about that fact, very bitter. She can't see that she doesn't have to accept that shit. That she didn't have to spend 30 odd years married to a useless waste of space. My "dad" has now decided that he can't be bothered making a short plane journey to see his grandchildren and for once she hasn't sucked it up and made excuses for him - she made him tell me himself as she knew I would put him straight. I feel sorry for her in a way. She believed, I think, that she was doing the right thing and now she's facing retirement with a man who genuinely doesn't see her as a person, whom she has kept afloat his entire life and who has no appreciation whatsoever for that. He just keeps on suiting himself, as ever.

I've heard too many different definitions of radical feminism to identify as radfem. IME it can mean 'society is fundamentally patriarchal' or trans-exclusionary or 'the personal is political' (all paraphrased obviously).

cailin I just deleted a massive post about 3 times because I don't know how to quite say what I am trying to say. But I hope it gets easier for you and all the other women who have been victims and are just quietly having to hide all the shit going on in their lives because we mustn't inconvenience anyone.

ria in that case does radfeminism kind of mean whatever the person who identifies as a radfem wants it to be?

Penguins I think that's how I feel.

I'd call myself a radfem, although I'd acknowledge some people would be howling with laughter at the idea, because I'm not hugely activisty or academic about it either. I just feel the very simple idea of the patriarchy being the root problem is convincing.

I also think that the attitude towards radical feminism is similar to the attitude towards feminism from the 'I'm not a feminist but' crowd. What the 'I'm not a feminist' crowd usually seem to mean is 'god, I don't want to get associated with those man-haters and be seen as an extremist'.

It sometimes seems to, but if that's the case it doesn't really mean anything Maybe renaming the subsets would help.

Oh, and I should say ... part of the reason I would say I'm a radfem is because too many people in my RL would assume I'm a liberal, third-wave type who automatically agrees with them. It's slightly irritating, and saying you're a radfem is the quickest way to explain why you might not be that interested in, say, a celebratory burlesque night to mark the start of the pro-prostitution campaign.

Oh, and I should say ... part of the reason I would say I'm a radfem is because too many people in my RL would assume I'm a liberal, third-wave type who automatically agrees with them. It's slightly irritating, and saying you're a radfem is the quickest way to explain why you might not be that interested in, say, a celebratory burlesque night to mark the start of the pro-prostitution campaign.

I think if I were to call myself a radfem, I would almost be worried someone is going to throw down the gauntlet and demand I prove it. I don't know enough about the names and what they stand for.

• as in the feminist names.

Any reading I have done on feminism off line has been very pop culturey type stuff.

Yeah, I'm sure at some point someone is going to get over their sniggering and ask me why I think I am one. I dunno. I don't think I have to have clubbed baby seals to death or anything.

What does happen quite often is that nice libfem types will look shocked, as if I've said something slightly uncouth, and reassure me that I'm not really one of those.

I think those people have an image that radical feminists are all terrifying lesbians who go around killing male babies and beating up prostitutes for betraying the cause.

Hmm.

I don't define as radfem but I don't go to burlesque parties either.

Hmm. I don't really know. But I'm definitely a feminist. Not many people I know in RL would say that. Only a few would if asked, I think. Some would but will have disclaimers, probably the neurotrash type reasons, like "but boys and girls are different though".

I don't define myself as a radfem, but I think I'm closer to them than I am to some of the other strands of feminism. I don't really do any feminist reading, or activism (although that's something I would like to get into if i ever get a bit more time).

I think MN is fairly close to radfem as a whole, in some ways. And not at all in others.

bill - oops, wasn't implying all non-rad fems are into burlesque. Merely that some people I know would assume, by default, that it's a very feminist thing and therefore everyone will enjoy it.

I wouldn't identify as a radical feminist, but that's because I don't know what criteria I'd have to meet to count as one. Is there a handy checklist? I can hazard a guess, but I'd like to be sure what radfem means, precisely, before I can work out where I fit in terms of labels. I do think, though, that there are as many types of feminism as there are feminists, because to claim the label feminist all we need to believe is that gender shouldn't be a valid reason to divide and discriminate.

It's ok, LRD - somewhere else someone said libfems were pro prostitution, which isn't my definition at all.

Maybe I don't fit into one of the groups.

Just been out shopping...

stormybird I get into trouble in RL for wanting to know precisely what people mean by things like "multitasking", "creative" and words like that that gets brandied about in order to put you in neat little pigeonholes. Still a bit at demanding to know what exactly the nursery worker meant by whether I thought certain activities had improved "creativity" in DS2.

It pisses me of that that thread was deleted "to protect the Op's privacy". Was it bollocks. It was because the OP was having a go at feminists, and was being told they were wrong.