quote:

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fern hill said:
It's easy -- all ya gotta do is say: 'I'm a man-hating vagina warrior'.
Membership is open to all.

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(X-posted)

[ 22 December 2006: Message edited by: RP. ]

I am a man-hating vagina-warrior gender Stalinista!

[ 26 December 2006: Message edited by: writer ]

quote:

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Originally posted by writer:
RP., the club's title need updated...And so, I confess ...Elizabeth May and all terrifically nuanced, sophisticated and moral anti-abortion pro-choicers (and those who support them), please forgive me, for I will not bend! And, god help me, it is a choice I make.

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"I, too am a man-hating vagina-warrior gender Stalinista!"

I mean, I for one, have always wanted to be a "Stalinista", as well as a; "femninazi". After all, we women can multi-task extremely well, so why not embody two regimes that fought against one another, and were diametric in philosophy...

It always goes over very well. Especially in a thread (that has a year-long babble history) that is a reaction to men telling women how they should behave. Especially when we are, y'know, being silly to make fun of sexist bullshit, like that indulged by your buddy Dr. Dawg.

Hats off to you, O brave vagina chaser. May you someday catch a clue.

[ 26 December 2006: Message edited by: writer ]

Jeez. They have a logo. But we got the multitudinous May threads! Mwa hah haaaa!

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Originally posted by writer:
Brian White, there's nothing better than someone like you expressing an individually held opinion...we are, y'know, being silly to make fun of sexist bullshit, like that indulged by your buddy Dr. Dawg.

Hats off to you, O brave vagina chaser. May you someday catch a clue.

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quote:

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Originally posted by writer:
Well, Brian White, there's nothing better than someone like you expressing an individually held opinion that we're being silly here in the feminism forum.

It always goes over very well. Especially in a thread (that has a year-long babble history) that is a reaction to men telling women how they should behave. Especially when we are, y'know, being silly to make fun of sexist bullshit, like that indulged by your buddy Dr. Dawg.

Hats off to you, O brave vagina chaser. May you someday catch a clue.

[ 26 December 2006: Message edited by: writer ]

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quote:

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Although Vagina Warriors are highly original, they possess some general defining characteristics:
They are fierce, obsessed, can’t be stopped, driven.
They are no longer beholden to social customs or inhibited by taboos. They are not afraid to be alone, not afraid to be ridiculed or attacked. They are often willing to face anything for the safety and freedom of others.
They love to dance.
They are directed by vision, not ruled by ideology.
They are citizens of the world. They cherish humanity over nationhood.
They have a wicked sense of humor. A Palestinian activist told jokes to an Israeli soldier who pointed a machine gun at her as she tried to pass the checkpoints. She literally disarmed him with her humor.
Vagina Warriors know that compassion is the deepest form of memory.
They know that punishment does not make abusive people behave better. They know that it is more important to provide a space where the best can emerge rather than “teaching people a lesson.” I met an extraordinary activist in San Francisco, a former prostitute who had been abused as a child. Working with the correctional system, she devised a therapeutic workshop where convicted pimps and johns could confront their loneliness, insecurity and sorrow.
Vagina Warriors are done being victims. They know no one is coming to rescue them. They would not want to be rescued.
They have experienced their rage, depression, desire for revenge and they have transformed them through grieving and service. They have confronted the depth of their darkness. They live in their bodies.
They are community makers. They bring everyone in.
Vagina Warriors have a keen ability to live with ambiguity. They can hold two existing, opposite thoughts at the same time. I first recognized this quality during the Bosnian war. I was interviewing a Muslim woman activist in a refugee camp whose husband had been decapitated by a Serb. I asked her if she hated Serbs. She looked at me as if I were crazy. “No, no, I do not hate Serbs,” she said, “If I were to hate Serbs, then the Serbs would have won.”
Vagina Warriors know that the process of healing from violence is long and happens in stages. They give what they need the most, and by giving this they heal and activate the wounded part inside.
Many Vagina Warriors work primarily on a grassroots level. Because what is done to women is often done in isolation and remains unreported, Vagina Warriors work to make the invisible seen. Mary in Chicago fights for the rights of Women of Color so that they are not disregarded or abused; Nighat risked stoning and public shaming in Pakistan by producing “The Vagina Monologues” in Islamabad so that the stories and passions of women would not go unheard; Esther insists that the hundreds of disappeared girls in Juarez are honored and not forgotten.

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[ 29 December 2006: Message edited by: Debra ]

We ain't changing no name. Adding to it as the situation evolves, maybe, but not changing it.

Rah!

[ 29 December 2006: Message edited by: writer ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Debra:
What is a vagina warrior
...They are no longer beholden to social customs or inhibited by taboos. They are not afraid to be alone, not afraid to be ridiculed or attacked. They are often willing to face anything for the safety and freedom of others.
They love to dance.
They are directed by vision, not ruled by ideology.
They are citizens of the world. They cherish humanity over nationhood...

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Thank you,Judy, Sharon, Debra, writer, Michelle and all the other women that flow in and about rabble/babble and indeed throughout the ROC. Your strength, vision and fortitude has, for me, been a significant foundation at a time when I needed it most.

Over the past year, I have been struggling to come to terms with the physical and emotional trauma left after a brutal attack that perhaps could've killed me. It seemed that the core of who I was, a strong feminist, had been torn away.

In the last month, the affirmation of reading all our: struggles, past and present, thoughts and hopes has lead me back to that core, strengthened, and perhaps understanding even more, than I have over the decades, what is posted in the quote above.

I actually came back to this thread for a less pleasant reason. John Baglow seems to be under the impression that your reference in the above post to the "trophy wife mentality" was a direct reference to his late partner.

Now, I didn't get that from your post, and I remember reading it at the time and not really getting what you meant by it. But apparently his partner just died recently, and he feels that this reference was specifically about her, and about their relationship. To the point where he sent me a quite unhappy e-mail about it and blogged about it both on his blog and in the comments of another blog.

I personally had no idea that John's partner died, and I'm terribly sorry to hear this. I don't follow the blogs much, and I never really follow people's links to their blogs. So this is why it didn't occur to me to connect that comment to that incident, and I doubt it would occur to anyone else who didn't know either.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Thanks, remind, that's really nice. I didn't see it before or I would have responded.

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You are quite welcome Michelle.

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[qb]I actually came back to this thread for a less pleasant reason. John Baglow seems to be under the impression that your reference in the above post to the "trophy wife mentality" was a direct reference to his late partner.

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Pardon me? I did not know, nor care, who jbaglow was until he posted here. After which I surfacely learned more about his politics from links to other places that were posted here. I do not follow the blogging world, even now to know this was going on.

Until this post of yours, I did not know he had a partner,nor did I care, let alone that he had one that passed on.

I am saddened though, that he has experienced such a loss.

How he would jump to a conclusion that I was speaking of "his trophy wife" or his "trohpy wife mentality" I do not know. As in fact I did not know until now he had had either one.

What I meant with that non-specific comment was more of mental attitude amongst "some" middle aged "powerful" men, and perhaps some not so powerful, of: "when I was young, I believed in that feminist stuff because that's where the women were and I could make political social gains, now I am middle aged, and have made it, I want a trophy wife, that thinks I am great no matter the comb over, paunch and wrinkles".

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Anyhow. I would appreciate it if you would clarify what you meant when you were referring to a "trophy wife mentality", especially since the earlier part of your post was obviously referring to him. I'm asking this publicly because John has taken this public and was obviously very upset by it, which is understandable considering his recent loss. If it's a misunderstanding, I'd like to see it cleared up.

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No problem Michelle, do not mind you taking it public, as nothing was meant in regards to him, or his life, at all.

Frankly, I find it interesting, and a bit weird, that he would apply that general of a comment to himself and then go public about it.

Also, I am a bit insulted that he would feel myself, or anyone could do that to him, or indeed any person, suffering over the loss of someone close. But am willing to let it go as grief makes us overly emotional and not always rational.

But several people have argued that it seems often to be the young men who are kind of scared of "radical feminists" which I think means the women who will not smile sweetly and shut up while they explain how the world works. What Berlynn called

quote:

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the young men who are fast becoming old boys in thinking they know what is best for women’s economic freedom and in so doing perpetuate the war on women.

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[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

Here.

quote:

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Originally posted by writer:
remind, I think you deserve to know where you are being talked about.

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Well, thanks for the heads up all, and thanks even more for the support before I had a chance to know, or answer. I do wish jbaglow would have just pm'd me and dealt with this as a mature individual following appropriate channels, before embarking down a path that besmirches himself needlessly and unwarrentedly.

Having read all the threads everywhere, I am sorry that this unfounded rant, of Jbaglows across blog world, has shunted aside, or deflected away from, discourse on the negative comments, May and her supporters had to say regarding, a women's rights to self determine and then later about feminists themselves.

quote:

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Originally posted by writer:
You're a good one.

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A good what?

[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: writer ]

[ 04 January 2007: Message edited by: J. Baglow ]

And had your situation not been what it was with your partner, then her general comment about middle aged men developing a "trophy wife mentality" towards women would have been no worse than your comment about "gender Stalinistas".

I think this was a misunderstanding. And I think it's an excellent object lesson on the reason why both of you shouldn't be slinging insults and labels at each other. It's so easy for people to throw insults at each other, and so easy for people to get really hurt by them. Perhaps both of you (and the rest of us too) should think about that before pounding the keyboard.

[ 04 January 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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I had originally written "For some of the gender Stalinists around, there is only one position on anything permitted." That was clumsy and ambiguous. It suggests that there is a class of "gender Stalinists" some of whom actually do permit more than one position. Hence the phrase was open to interpretation (and misinterpretation) as applying, at least possibly, to feminists in general--a left-wing term-substitute for Rush Limbaugh's infamous "feminazis."

That was a serious error, and I apologize for it. I have dropped the "some of," making it clear that I was referring to precisely that small handful of "line" folks, and no one else.

Babbling lunacy

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Anyhow, I used, as noted, no such term. As for "cheap insult" -- you slay me. This place abounds with it, for anyone who deviates from the "line." On the other hand, I was referring to an actual tendency, very much in evidence here.

Thank you for quoting from my second post, by the way--that was the "taking back" that I referred to. Clumsy, very clumsy, and no doubt I'll keep paying the price for it. Maybe someday the fantasy below might come true:

*****************

Baglow: Yesterday, under the influence of a momentary keen feeling of false shame, evoked by the atmosphere of the dock and the painful impression created by the public reading of the indictment, which was aggravated by my poor health, I could not bring myself to tell the truth, I could not bring myself to say that I was guilty. And instead of saying, "Yes, I am guilty," I almost mechanically answered, "No, I am not guilty."

Babblers: Mechanically?

quote:

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Originally posted by J. Baglow:
"remind," your injured innocence routine might work here, but not with me. I PMed you on this on December 29. The status of that message is still "unread by recipient." Just so people here know.

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Jbaglow, yes you did pm me on Dec 29, and I just now read it, and the others who had also pm'd me telling me about your accusations across blog world. I apologize to all for not checking my pm's sooner.

Please note, I responded to your brief, and falsely accusing, pm just now at length, before I came back to this thread to respond in public.

Had you left your pm to me up, people could've have seen that you asked me what I meant in the 1st sentence and in the next, and final, sentence you judged and condemned me without waiting for an explanation or even a response.

However, I am not going to belabour the point of rushing to hasty and wrong judgements/conclusions, I have done, and do it myself upon occasion.

Also, please note; I do not "yet" feel injured, even though I do know that I am innocent of your accusations. Had I checked my pm's and responded to you in the few hours you apparently allotted before you went public, perhaps you would not have besmirched yourself, and in turn me, unwarrantedly and needlessly.

quote:

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Originally posted by J. Baglow:
So the comment about age was just a lucky guess?

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Probably not, considering you list your birthdate in your profile for all to see.

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He's been posting all Sorts of misleading crap about 'stalinist feminists' online, and barely a word when one of his conservative fans twists the knife even further.

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[ 04 January 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]