The Silence of Our Friends

24 comment(s):

Now it's just my little opinion, but all the energy that goes into fighting off what people think of us might do more invested in a different direction. I'm not saying it's not important to stand up for my own self-definition. But after a certain point, reacting so strongly to anything only validates the attack or the wrongheaded assumptions.

let it be understood that i do not follow closely the events you mention. only from a distance. so take it with a grain of salt.

By  Anonymous, at 1/16/2007 2:16 AM  

welcome back Donna. You were missed.

By  HopeSpringsATurtle, at 1/16/2007 2:31 AM  

Always nice to hear from you, Donna. I tend to come from a similar place as you in the sense that my ideas and attitudes about social justice are informed by my experiences and personal readings and mental meanderings, not from formal academic training. I suppose this hurts us because we lack certain bodies of theory, but maybe sometimes it also helps us maintain a fresh set of eyes and a healthy grounding in common sense and an accessible vocabulary. Or maybe that's just what I'd like to think. ;-) Anyway, mostly I just wanted to say Hi! Hope all's well. Take care.

By  Kai, at 1/16/2007 9:39 AM  

Like you ever have "little" opinions, Nezua! LOL I agree with you unless the person is on a journey of self-discovery, which I am. I don't know how to define "me" yet since I was relatively apolitical until the 2000 election. I'm still trying on labels and keeping or discarding them, so these conflicts are helping me to define myself and decide what I do or do not believe.

I've also decided that I am wasting my time on those who are decidedly antagonistic towards my views, by that I mean conservatives. While I have to be around these people on a daily basis and some are even relatives and friends, I know I will not change their minds in the political arena and won't bother trying. So I find that my time is better spent not only refining my views but that of my allies, because they need alot of work too! LOL The conflicts tend to be educational for me to see myself more clearly and my allies as well.

Thank you Hope! Just to let you know I do stop by your blog and read even if I don't comment. I really loved your post on spilt milk and wish more people were aware of the Bush family agenda. More often than not many of the blue blooded wealthy American families have built their dynasties at a terrible cost to ordinary people, but we are not allowed to see that or criticize it openly. Why isn't Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the NY Times covering these kind of stories? Because they don't, when you tell people they don't believe you, if something this awful was happening in America we would know about it! People do understand that doctors cover the sins of other doctors, that cops cover the sins of their brethren, etc. Why can't they see that the wealthy do the same, including the wealthy who own our media? Talking about the Bush family connections to the Nazis is dismissed as conspiracy theory nonsense when in reality it is backed by cold hard facts!

Kai, what you said about an accessible vocabulary seems especially important to me. Sometimes when I am reading someone talking about theory my eyes start to glaze over or I get this overwhelming sense of frustration, that I will need to read at least a dozen books to understand clearly. I doubt if this is the effect the writer intends. I hate to tell people to talk down to me though, but sometimes I am sorely tempted!

By  Donna, at 1/16/2007 5:18 PM  

welcome back donna! you sound like me sometimes. i tend to throw myself into things big time and then find I have to ratchet back and then some other crisis comes along.

i hope you are feeling better and the kids don't get strep. and personally, i considered it a big deal to be able to stay home with my kids. a lot of these people don't realize that, for some of us, we're the first generation of women to do so. i realize they still think we're ideologically warped but whatever!

By  Anonymous, at 1/16/2007 5:28 PM  

I was about to send out an all-points bulletin for you Donna, but I kept hope alive that you were just under deep cover for a while. ;)

And now that you mention it... So I have a difficult time with terminology and mostly speak about my experiences instead ... because I wanted to jump into the last few discussions here but was overwhelmed by the lingo. Seriously, I didn't have the language skills to jump in without sounding like a dope.

So I just kept my mouf shut. ;)

Take it easy, and great to read you again!

oh, and P.S. -- Don't for a minute think that men don't care about appearances. I dress down because that's my style, but men do care. Not that I'll do anything about it, but still -- they're very visual -- it's in their genetic makeup. *shaking fist at all men*

By  Anonymous, at 1/16/2007 5:36 PM  

My project, such as it is, is to engage with people who seem to me like they're willing or at least able to engage. at the moment i'm not really taking on people who're really full-on conservatives in any way--probably Rootie's as far to the right as anyone on my blogroll, and she's a bit of a renegade herself i rather think; but i wouldn't rule it out, ever.

i think at Slant Truth we were, Kevin was talking about this at one point, maybe: we start talking to our more or less opponents on "our side of the fence," or rather: there are fences within fences within fences; maybe start by hopping the neighbor's, or chatting through the slats, before trying to tackle that one way in the distance. doesn't mean we never should, though.

mostly what i keep finding is: by their fruits you will know them. there has to be a point where someone can drop all the bullshit for five seconds and just connect. otherwise it doesn't matter how eloquent your argument is. there is a certain transaction that has to happen; i think you sort of get a feel for it, you know.

By  belledame222, at 1/16/2007 6:46 PM  

Ahem. I should clarify. No evolved man would choose a birdbrain in an evening dress over a woman of substance dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

However, I'm talking about "flair" and "style" and not "flash". Put two women side by side, both with wit and brains and, okay, we'll throw in beauty. Say they're both wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but one has an adorable hat on or maybe a super cute pair of sneaks. Shows individuality, a quirky side, a sense of fun.

I think men are more drawn to this, actually, than women. I'd pick a man who had no accoutrements whatsover. I'd go with the guy with the jeans and bed-head hair over the one perfectly coiffed and who looked like he spent an hour at the mirror. But on the whole men are more "lookist".

That's my story and I'm stickin to it. ;)

By  Anonymous, at 1/16/2007 6:52 PM  

B|L I had thought that feminists would support women no matter what they decided to do, but find that there are these groups who don't and I think it reflects their own insecurities in some ways. They think that a woman who chooses to stay at home will bring the whole house of cards crashing down. They think the gains they have made for themselves in their careers are that fragile. I wonder if they would feel more comfortable about it if there were more stay at home fathers, then it wouldn't be a woman issue, or if they would have some new problem with that? Because it really seems to me that some people think that you can only make the same choices they made before they will give you their seal of approval, like any other choices negate their lifestyle.

Jump in anyway, Jenny! Alot of the time I do, if only to ask what people mean by the terms they are using. I think the more people that are involved in a conversation then we all get to see many more interesting perspectives. I don't mind being "the ignorant one" if I think the discussion is important if only to remind people that there are alot more out there like me who need to know and understand.

I still think that men aren't very interested in fashion, cosmetics, and the like the way that women are. I do agree that appearance is important to men, but in a more basic way, they are interested in a certain type which is more likely to include things like race, body type, hair color, etc than whether she is wearing a particular designer or brand of clothing for example. And unless men are lying to me, most men I have talked about cosmetics with have said they hate them. I think what they really mean by that is that they would rather that they couldn't tell that a woman is wearing make-up than that they really want the freshly washed face with all the unevenness and blemishes. Also, having a quirky side is attractive to both sexes, you have to stand out from the crowd but I also think there is going too far and trying too hard. LOL

You're right Belle. My husband is a reformed Republican and I argued him into my corner. But he was also fairly apolitical which is why we could coexist cancelling out each others votes for years. What I am talking about is the hard core conservatives, they are politically aware and more like sports fans than actual thinking creatures. "Republicans can do no wrong! Rah Rah! We are winners, you are losers!" My father, my sister-in-law, my cousin's husband, and my neighbor across the street immediately come to mind. No matter how badly the shit hits the fan Bush can do no wrong. These are the people who have the polls stuck at about 30%. Somehow they always manage to find excuses for the incompetence, corruption, and downright evil before their eyes.

By  Donna, at 1/17/2007 2:19 AM  

Yes, Donna, I'm not talking about globs of makeup or high-fashion. Just a "look"... whatever that might be.

Anyway, it's a side issue to be sure.

And about the terminology, I honestly never heard the term "radfem" used in casual conversation, for example, HA!, so that's how far out of the range of discussion I was.

Of course "radical feminism" is in my vocablulary, but because I had to actually take a moment to think about it I knew I was out of my depth, jargon wise. Anyway, the discussion flowed really nicely without me.

I promise if I really had something profound to say I would've dipped in ;)

Glad you're back!

By  Anonymous, at 1/17/2007 1:28 PM  

Regarding the 30%... I wonder if these folks have such a serious belief in the office of the president that they can't allow themselves to think for a moment that this man might have feet of clay. It would absolutely destroy their worldview.

Of course, these are the same people who despised Clinton even pre-Lewinsky and believed he murdered Vince Foster, so basically they're just a bunch of nuts. They were kept in their dank holes and justifiably scorned pre-Reagan, but he gave them credence, and now they're free-range chickens doing a heck of a lot of damage.

Oh no, now we're back to chickens! ;)

By  Anonymous, at 1/17/2007 1:43 PM  

Hey, good to see you back! So sorry about that virus. I understand it is nasty stuff.

Just wanted to comment that you've got me pegged with my intermediate posting. I'll be back after I've read the whole post and the lovely comments.

Take care, Donna!

By  Ravenmn, at 1/17/2007 7:25 PM  

Back again. I don't know how to do trackbacks, but I posted a riff on one of your quotes here.

By  Ravenmn, at 1/17/2007 11:02 PM  

I was starting to wonder if you'd quit. It's good to know that there are some other "non-academic" types around here. I feel kind of out of my league every so often.

As for conservatives, I have one nearly 70 year old man from Oklahoma that reads. But, he has an actual sense of humor. And, not one of those "anything that's NOT PC is FUNNY! GIT R DUN!" senses of humor--a REAL sense of humor.

By  Veronica, at 1/17/2007 11:06 PM  

I love donna!

By  Blackamazon, at 1/17/2007 11:35 PM  

Jenny, you're not the only one. I just learned about sex-pos and radfem in the last few months and am still learning. (Thanks to my tutors, Belle and B|L!)

Actually I just found out last night that even in this post I didn't fully understand what was going on. For one thing alot of this has to do with some ridiculous bee/wasp post made by a radfem. I thought this was still about the IBTP trans hatred still, and it is in a way. After I am done commenting I'll make a new post with some links to the newer issues.

My basis is in social justice and human rights and all that, and I align with feminism only when there is alignment on those topics... which, for the most part, there is little of (beyond a bit of talk here or there).

This is mostly why I find myself aligned with sex positive feminists, because they are interested and write about these subjects. It appears to me they are interested in how all types of oppression intersect and quite willing to discuss race, class, GLBT issues, disability, colonialism, and feminism.

Ravenmn, I stopped by your site to read the riff and commented too. I lived in Eagan, MN for all of three months way back in 1993. We got transferred from Utah and once we were there they said they were closing down that station and transferring us again. Funny thing is up until that point it was the one place both my husband and I liked. We had lived in Wichita, which I liked and he hated, and in Salt Lake City which I hated and my husband liked. From MN we were sent to Chicago. Neither of us liked it because the cost of living is astronomical.

Oh I know Veronica, there are several people who lean conservative who I like and get along with, but as with my husband they generally tend to be apolitical and don't really discuss it except in passing. In other words, their whole identity isn't wrapped up in Bush and defending him, so the few political conversations tend to be give and take and not confrontational.

By  Donna, at 1/18/2007 12:17 AM  

YES! I've just about had it with the tendency to get one's identity wrapped up in one's ideology, then deciding that the ideological identity is more important than being a person.

Or--"You can be a conservative, but do you have to be an asshole?"

By  Veronica, at 1/18/2007 1:20 AM  

Yeah donna, you'd think.

But, wow, there's this really long, involved discussion that gois on, with a lot of big feminist bloggers denouncing "choice feminism" this past summer. Same players, same stand off, different issues.

What I see from those who provide rationales for their attacks on "choice feminists" -- those are women who say that the point of feminism ought to be to make the scope of choice broader -- is this contradictory thinking.

1. on the one hand, the movement needs consistency and solidarity in the struggle. everyone needs to be on the same page to get anything to work

2. at the same time, I heard people talk about how the "personal is political" is about personal enlightenment. someone this summer said, point blank, that feminist was only for personally enlightening ourselves and others, and you couldn't expect collective efforts at social change.

If I had time, I'd write a book about these developments in feminist thought. Well, I have been writing that book in bits and pieces at the blog. heh.

But that whole series of blog wars this summer really had me scratching my head.

In the early days, "the personal is political" meant that our personal problems -- like not being able to find work in the IT industry (me) or finding it a struggle to raise kids and work outside the home at the same time (maybe your case) -- are not personal faults of our own alone, but are *political*. You can cope, personally, by doing what you have to do. E.g., I can work at McDonald's or become a 7-11 manager for 7.58/hr. Those are my personal ways of coping.

But the solutions, the early feminists said, are *political*. We can only come up with ways to deal justly with unemployment through collective, political movements. Same thing with the family v. work conundrum for all of us, men and women alike, where the corporate world thinks we owe them our blood.

But rather quickly after early feminists said all this, a split emerged in the movement, one of the splits mentioned in a recent post on my blog, a review of Alice Echols by Jo Freeman. That split transformed "the personal is political" to one where politics was primarily about personal transformations of the self -- rather than the community building BfP and the wider Radical WOC articlates, which includes both personal transformation and social struggle. bell hooks called it lifestyle feminism and critiqued it accordingly.

but when I read the big feminist blogs, it's like that work, that line of thought, never existed and doesn't exist.

bugs the helloutta me.

It's what BlackAmazon is always getting at: the difference between seeing it as a game of point scoring vs. seeing it as crucial not just to your own and your community's survival but to actually being able to *live*.

By  Anonymous, at 1/18/2007 8:56 AM  

Before my current reincarnation as a blogger (and a political operative), I was a theoretical archaeologist, more specifically, one who focus on mainly post-Modernist, engendered interpretations of the archaeological record. I used all the lingo, gave papers at conferences, wrote chapters for books on gender.

I hardly ever traverse the feminist side of the blogosphere, with the exception of a few sites which do more than just blame the patriarchy, for a couple reasons. One, I've done the "informing the amateurs" stint - on sci.arch waaay back when, and other than finding a mate, it wasn't that fullfilling - and it got me thrown out of graduate school when I informed one of my peers that hyperdiffusionist theory, when applied to the Americas, was in fact racist.

And when I say "amateurs", I don't mean people who don't know the lingo or speak from their own experience, but those who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Sorry to say, while I haven't been following many of the links into the swamp (other than the first transgendered folk post, where I was essentially appalled.)

Secondly, I honestly believe that not all cultures world-wide have been patriarchal from the beginning of time. While my own tribe has had to deal with centuries of oppression, it's very clear from my own family structure that our former egalitarian roots were not eradicated completely when patriarchal Euros arrived on the coast of Maine. My husband took my name, my children have my name, my husband moved to my village, and we share the majority of childcare and housework, despite whether one or both of us are working at any given time. It was this way for my parents as well, though I have much respect for my mom, as she married a white, while I partnered with another Indian from a tribe with a matriarchal tradition.

So I don't buy into the universal patriarchy model, and I also don't agree with the essentialist models I find many rad-fems, or those who propose completely separate spheres for men and women, still embrace. (Urk, there I go with the lingo...blech.)

And the third is related to that last sentence - I didn't come onto the blogosphere to do what I did in my other life - I wanted to explore new parts of myself, parts outside that identity box I'd constructed. And yes, it's opened up a whole slew of choices. I, like you, nidobaskwa, have no interest in moving from the greater patriarchy of white-dominated culture (versus personal patriarchy so many talk about) to another externally-defined cubby, whether the constructors of said box are feminists or not.

Anyway, I guess I should read your latest post as well. I've missed you - it's funny how comforting it is to have another Wabanaki out there in the blogosphere, even if neither us are are currently living in Dawnland.

By  Anonymous, at 1/18/2007 10:45 PM  

I tried to preview that comment, but it crashed, and hence, all the typos and dangling sentences. Blame it on this nasty dual-host pathogen obviously brought to the Americas to vex us indigenous peoples.

By  Anonymous, at 1/18/2007 10:47 PM  

And when I say "amateurs", I don't mean people who don't know the lingo or speak from their own experience, but those who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Oh, bless you for that.

If I see someone trying to pass off a half-navel-gazing,, half Cultural Revolution-style grilling as "consciousness raising" ONE more time...

and the people who happily say "patriarchal" where "sexist" would do just fine and frankly would be closer to the mark...

and the people who think "choice feminism" is an actual term, and that feminist history stopped and started with Dworkin, Morgan, Jeffreys, and MacKinnon...

...and calling all this half-digested noxious pablum "advanced" feminism no less...(yes, there's a certificate and everything!)

...yeah, i don't blame you, i have to say. although i and others are doing our damnedest to -try- and take it to a more serious, complex, level online, y'know, actually like read books and talk (and listen) to people who can tell us something we -don't- know, and be more interested in fitting the theory to the actual people than the other way around...

By  belledame222, at 1/18/2007 11:30 PM  

I've also decided that I am wasting my time on those who are decidedly antagonistic towards my views, by that I mean conservatives. While I have to be around these people on a daily basis and some are even relatives and friends, I know I will not change their minds in the political arena and won't bother trying. So I find that my time is better spent not only refining my views but that of my allies, because they need alot of work too! LOL The conflicts tend to be educational for me to see myself more clearly and my allies as well.

Yeah. I'm from a region that is very conservative, and it's a waste of time on most issues though occasionally on an issue there might be some similar beliefs.

Definitely true on some allies. Though a major discussion lately is whether change is initiated within the system or from outside and there's a lot of disagreement there. Alliances can be tricky at times.

By  Anonymous, at 1/20/2007 12:38 AM  

I just wonder if it's as clear-cut as all that, you know, "inside the system" versus "outside the system." I mean: which system? is there more than one, or is it a monolith? is it an all or nothing thing? is anyone completely outside -any- system? is that even desirable?

By  belledame222, at 1/21/2007 2:29 AM  

it's a good point Donna. i too am on a journey. so i can dig what you mean. i just have to be careful i'm not trying to prove something to someone else. i definitely have lots i need to find out for myself. and you're right. i dont have any "little" opinions. last one i had got squashed in my pocket.

By  Anonymous, at 2/20/2007 12:29 AM  

Post a comment

<< Home