Hear me roar

[compared2what?]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to be around to monitor this tonight. However, I just wanted to ask the members of this forum to consider this (and if they post, to do it in civil terms):

There have now been three threads dealing with feminist issues in which I've participated that got locked, owing to the extreme hostility and hatred toward women being expressed on them. On all three, any female poster who tried to enter the discussion was immediately condemned, and usually cursed and demeaned, the moment she spoke up. That count would definitely be four rather than three if Lunarose, Pazdispenser and I had not simply stopped responding on the "Dark Knight: Where Have I Seen THAT Before?" thread. And it would be many, many, many more than four if I didn't voluntarily opt not to speak freely and candidly from a feminist perspective most of the time, in order to allow conversation to continue unimpeded by the hysterical tantrums and knife-throwing that inevitably results when I or any woman here does.

In case the problem with that isn't clear to anyone, allow me to point out that leaves me with two choices: I can preemptively silence my true and natural voice, or I can say what I really think and feel, endure some abuse, and then end up getting silenced.

I'm pretty sure that nothing I've ever said in any of those threads was said with rage or hatred or condemnation of men as a class, because I don't feel any of those things. Though as I recall, I did share my very harsh opinion of GM Citizen's comportment with him and the world at large towards the end of one of them. Which I regret, for which I apologize, and which I would not have done if I hadn't been tired, frustrated and short-tempered from the two-day slog that preceded those remarks.

In your honest but civilly expressed and considered opinion, do any of you really think you live in a world in which women are free and equal citizens, who have no reason at all to feel that it's not totally safe to be themselves? Or one in which you hear women's voices speaking freely and candidly very often, if ever?

You do? Honestly? On what do you base that belief, exactly?

[FourthBase]

There have now been three threads dealing with feminist issues in which I've participated that got locked, owing to the extreme hostility and hatred toward women being expressed on them. On all three, any female poster who tried to enter the discussion was immediately condemned, and usually cursed and demeaned, the moment she spoke up.

As it regards to my baby: Bullshit. As in: NOT TRUE.

The proof is all there, in the link in my signature. You are LYING.

[erosoplier]

I've gotta run too, but I'm glad you started a new thread - I'll be back later. Assuming there's something to come back to at that point.

[Eldritch]

I'm glad you started this thread, too.

In your honest but civilly expressed and considered opinion, do any of you really think you live in a world in which women are free and equal citizens, who have no reason at all to feel that it's not totally safe to be themselves? Or one in which you hear women's voices speaking freely and candidly very often, if ever?

You do? Honestly? On what do you base that belief, exactly?

No, most women are not "free and equal citizens" in this world, and this fact is an outrage. And it is difficult for me to understand how anyone who has experienced life on Planet Earth to any significant degree whatsoever, could honestly assess the situation much differently.

[compared2what?]

There have now been three threads dealing with feminist issues in which I've participated that got locked, owing to the extreme hostility and hatred toward women being expressed on them. On all three, any female poster who tried to enter the discussion was immediately condemned, and usually cursed and demeaned, the moment she spoke up.

As it regards to my baby: Bullshit. As in: NOT TRUE.

The proof is all there, in the link in my signature. You are LYING.

I believe that you sincerely don't perceive it, Fourthbase. I'm not accusing you of any bad intention, without which there is no such thing as a bad act in this context, as far as I'm concerned. I may be in denial, or operating from a blind spot, but I'm not lying. I'm making a best-faith effort to say what I have to say honestly and fairly. I definitely might be mistaken, and if I am, I want to know it.

So if there are any other posters out there who agree with Fourthbase that the thread in question wasn't marked by an aggressive and extreme hostility toward real rather than putative women; that this aggression and hostility wasn't being expressed in terms so angry that it bordered on violent; and that said anger was objectively reasonable and proportionate to the remarks that provoked it -- please correct or revise or enhance my understanding, by telling me how and why you don't see what I do. Please. I really want you to. But, you know, civilly. Because I don't want this locked.

Thanks!

That notwithstanding, FB, your objection is duly noted. Okay?

[FourthBase]

In your honest but civilly expressed and considered opinion, do any of you really think you live in a world in which women are free and equal citizens, who have no reason at all to feel that it's not totally safe to be themselves? Or one in which you hear women's voices speaking freely and candidly very often, if ever?

Allow me to get real (follow my lead?) and pre-empt more bullshit.

Does being cheated, enslaved, abused, harassed, mind-fucked, and/or raped give a woman's opinion more weight than a man's? Intrinsically: NO. All that matters is whether you are right in assessing the situation, and how much so.

Anyway: Women aren't the only ones being, say, raped. Raped more often? Of course. But not the only ones. I was raped, repeatedly, when I was five years old. "Fortunately", it wasn't family or even adults who raped me, I can't imagine the extra horror of that. Does being raped give my opinion more weight? Intrinsically: NO. It matters in so far as it has had a part in who I've become and how I think, but otherwise: It doesn't matter. I reject all appeals to authority. No exceptions. Why have I never revealed this information before? Because it's nobody's fucking business but my own, and it doesn't matter. Or rather, it shouldn't matter. Which is why I'm making the choice here to reveal it, to prove a point: That it doesn't matter.

C2W, I'm assuming you're still under the false impression that I told you somewhere to shut up? I never told you to shut up. But I should have been more forceful, in the form of exhortation. DON'T SHUT UP. DON'T EVER SHUT UP. Keep talking. Keep reading. Keep thinking. Keep trying to understand. Keep trying to figure it out. For yourself. Is this just me "telling you what to do" again? No, it's me telling you what to do for the very first time. I hope you don't mind. Ultimately, it's just my opinion.

But please, stop lying. To yourself. You are not accurately representing what occurred on pages 18-21 of the "Women of the World" thread. I don't really care if you lie about me, though. Although it makes me sad.

[compared2what?]

We cross-posted. I know you're sad, and I feel for you. This is not an attack on you. Or on anyone. Also, please, I am begging you: Try to be honest using less inflammatory language. I don't want this to end up locked, and I'm sure you don't either.

More in a moment.

[FourthBase]

For the record: One can edit a post and the edit is not registered if your post is the last one or something, but my post above is totally unedited, i.e., yes, C2W and I posted within two seconds of each other. I see it as a sign of supernatural goodness.

[FourthBase]

Three seconds that time.

EDIT: Whoops, minutes.

[Gilda]Nevermind.[/Gilda]

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Who's Gilda?

[Wilbur Whatley]

Who's Gilda??!! Gilda Radnor, the late great. But Nevermind.

[FourthBase]

Should have named the character, but wanted to give Radner a shout-out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella

[GM Citizen]

Though as I recall, I did share my very harsh opinion of GM Citizen's comportment

And I believe you did so honestly, freely, and candidly. Doesn't that answer your question, to some extent?

[compared2what?]

I fully admit you didn't tell me to shut up directly. You told me that if I didn't experience your assigning women (of which I am one) a role in the world in which I had no agency wrt my own identity or my own desires as an enjoyable compliment, I was in need of a metaphorical deep-dicking. If there's a way of reading that which doesn't equate to: You, c2w, are unqualified to speak for what women want, although you are a woman. Because your identity as a woman is false, inadequate, and incomplete. Which -- despite being problems of female identity can only be resolved after that identity has been metaphorically deeply penetrated by something hard and masculine, which I have and you don't.

That's not exactly "Shut up." It's more like, "La-la-la, I can't hear you, NOW LISTEN TO ME AND LISTEN GOOD, LITTLE LADY. I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. AND IF YOU KNEW WHAT' WAS GOOD FOR YOU, YOU'D STOP ARGUING AND LET ME (or my surrogate) GIVE IT TO YOU." Which actually has more scope than just telling me to shut up would, since it silences what I said retroactively, as well as invalidates anything I might say in the future, assuming I didn't feel that the environment was too hostile to my voice for it to be a good idea for me to continue speaking.

And if you don't know that in any context outside of consensual sexual role play, women understand men who tell them what they need is a good hard fuck, metaphorical or otherwise, to be either reminding them who has the metaphorical and actual weight advantage at best or, at worst, threatening them, there's no time like the present for you to learn it. So please take my word for it that they do.

In short, you didn't tell me to shut up. You just made it both uncongenial and impossible for me to speak and be heard.

Although later in the same post, you endorse the idea that asking a woman what she wants is a good way to demystify the feminine. Which is commendable. You have to be willing to listen to the answer you get with at least some gesture in the direction of being receptive to it, though. Without that, there's not really a whole lot of point in asking.

In any event, ultimately you made it impossible for me to speak in more concrete terms, by continuing to act out without regard to what I or anyone else told you was objectionable about that until the thread was locked. That sure shut me up. And you too, of course.

[annie aronburg]

Yanks vs Sox--WHO WILL WIN?!!!