My Anger Is Valid, Your Running Away Isn't

There's a woman whose first name is Heidi who wrote an article about Feminism that was full of shit, in my opinion. This entry is not about her. It is somewhat about me going to her blogsite today because I came across a link that claimed she'd tried to clarify what she'd meant in her original article. Clarification #2. But there was also a clarification #0. So that's three entries to clarify an editorial put up on a news site. But this post also isn't talking about that.


The Point:

There's a community on LJ called feminist. On said community a certain bittercat posted a one-liner concerning Ms Heidi Schnakenberg's article. Her one liner was: "I thought this was a very good article on race and feminism". That's all she said.

Given that said article ended up needing three separate posts (not on the original news site even) to clarify itself, one would think that bittercat would have more to say about the issues, especially when people commented asking her what she meant by that. And was she planning to elaborate or did she NOT see the racism and classicism and a whole bunch of other mess going on in the article.

Two pages of discussion and bittercat only posted three times. Once to say thank you to someone else who'd written a long nuanced comment about what they thought the original writer of the article might have been trying to say and what they got out of it. bittercat's second comment, was a response to someone asking why she hadn't written, tried to write/explain herself along the lines of the commenter she was thanking. In that comment she made the claim she was in a hurry and she's not eloquent or a college level scholar and that she didn't respond sooner because she doesn't like to contribute to nurturing hostility. So even though people were clamoring for her to explain herself, she viewed their anger and upset and confusion as hostility.

She told folks to 'have a good day' and she left the community.

Which leads us to today. And me going to read Clarification #3. And scrolling to find Clarification #2 and see if it's the entry that I'd read before. And I saw someone responding to Schnakenberg as if they were indeed bittercat and this is what they had to say:

It was a LOT of women, and I don't know if they were WOC or not. I just know they were very angry.

I ended up leaving that community over that. Not because I am a coward, but because I was overwhelmed by the sheer negativity that came out of my post. I am very sensitive and don't react well to such hatred. I also, like yourself, did not know about the particular events--which your friend so kindly posted about--that led up to the current divisiveness.(Have not had time to read those links, but I am going to.)

I just can't be a part of a "Feminist" community that is so...hostile. I can't stomach the idea that, because I am white, to some women, my oppression does not exist. For me, all women's oppression exists, so the divisions along race lines are just foreign to me. I was not raised that way, and I will not play into it now.

I have linked to your blog from mine, because no matter how much I read on the subject of interesectionality [sic]--what it has become--I STILL agree with you.

I am an I-Feminist and an Eco-Feminist. We tend to--on the one hand--see every individual woman's struggles as equally valid--and on the Eco side, we tend to see the big picture--the global implications of the oppression of women and girls. Those philosophies are just not amenable to nor compatible with this "new" intersectionality. In EcoFeminism, intersectionality (the traditional meaning) is a given.

Bless you.
~Cyber_Hippie

If Cyber Hippie is not bittercat and is someone else from another community who posted the article and received a huge outcry in return; Then I feel a bit better about the state of things on the internet that somewhere else there was a huge outcry.

But if Cyber Hippie is bittercat then I'm wondering if it's perfectly functional for her brain and sensibilities to write out her thoughts and beliefs if a) she finds herself in a position of agreement, or b) she knows the person reading and replying to her is not a Woman of Colour.

I won't link to Schnakenberg's response to that comment. It's easy enough to erase up until the .html and read the entry and all the comments. But I do find myself wanting to say this:

"Calling something divisiveness and hostility doesn't mean you're not claiming reverse discrimination. And it certainly isn't being inclusive of all women when there's mutual patting on the back and indulging in WWS.

All women are NOT delicate snowflakes who've never faced opposition of any other sort in their life and can have the privilege of not engaging because it would nurture hostility. And this 'divisiveness'? It's not recent. Even in #2 (entry 3) of her clarification Schnakenberg does not bring up the WoC First and Second Wave Feminists she left out of her original article.

More importantly, maybe most importantly; The discomfort of white women when faced with the reality of WoC dealing with multiple oppressions is not more important than those oppressions. The fear of white women is ALSO NOT more important than those oppressions. Because what else could be it but fear to feel the need to pop up and declaim every ten seconds "But White Women Are Oppressed Too!" as if WoC will somehow leave White Women standing on the corner as they move forward to tackle said oppressions. We are the ones who got left by the wayside in all the beginnings. We aren't the ones who throw a problem overboard in order to get just what we want. We aren't you."

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Steel Magnolia Note: Karen Healey's Post on the lack of WoC/CoC in Buffyverse? The ass showing in her forums was truly reprehensible. Karen and Betty might have missed some things but they fully recognized excuses, racist tropes and lack of critical thinking when they saw it.