Feminism and online fighting

Radical feminists, like many other groups, have an online community of people we hang out with and organize with every day. And like many other groups, sometimes we get into fights. We are not a homogenous group; we have a variety of different viewpoints on many things, and sometimes we find other women’s viewpoints to be very wrong. Every once in a while a fight rips through the community like a forest fire, destroying everything in its path, and leaving behind nothing but ashes, upon which new seedlings will have to grow. There are a few fights that happen over and over, and have been happening for a long time. Such as, for example, are straight women upholding the patriarchy by having relationships with men? Are mothers responsible for upholding patriarchy by giving birth to sons? Are straight feminists homophobic, and are lesbian feminists heterophobic? And there’s another fun fight, are meat and dairy eaters oppressing female animals by eating meat and dairy, and are vegans starving themselves and engaging in an elitist individual solution to a systemic problem? Honestly, I feel like rolling my eyes just typing out those sentences. No way do I want to get involved in any of those fights again!

There are many types of radical feminist. After a while you start to identify them when you see the stuff they write online. I’m gonna call my type a “traditional mainstream feminist.” One time a commenter came here and told me that I’m not a real radical feminist, I’m actually a traditional mainstream feminist. I didn’t take that as an insult, I thought it was a reasonable label and I embrace it. My feminism is real feminism, the kind that is about women, not the kind that has been ruined by post-modern academia, anti-feminist backlash, queer theory, and marketing schemes about buying products for Empowerment™. I’m not into certain extreme ideas that have come out of radical feminism, such as “kill all the male babies” or “all straight women are handmaidens,” but since I believe in analyzing patriarchy as the root cause of women’s oppression and believe that women are oppressed based on our biological sex, not our “feminine gender,” that puts me in the radical feminist camp.

There are lots of women who analyze biological sex as an axis of oppression and also have other philosophies, opinions, and viewpoints that don’t align with mine. There are essentialist types who believe that men are irredeemably evil, there are social constructionist types who think we are born completely blank slates and everything about ourselves comes from socialization, there are holier-than-thou types who want to die on the hill of political correctness and make it their mission to kick out anyone who isn’t politically pure, there are conspiracy types who are against Big Pharma and will heal the world with herbs and witchcraft (and there’s even a few anti-vaxxers in this group), there are vegans, and there are women who are against vegans, and there are women with personality problems who like to bully other women in the name of feminism. We are a wild and diverse group. It’s no surprise that the various personalities and viewpoints in our community lead to fights.

I’ve learned a few things about using the Internet over the last approximately ten years as I’ve engaged with online communities. Social media, as we all know, contributes to lots of misunderstandings and people saying extreme things anonymously that they probably wouldn’t say in real life. I have radar up that detect some of the following behaviours:

  • Ignoring what the original post said, and instead spewing out a bunch of their feelings of anger and frustration in a way that doesn’t respond to the original post, but just offers them personal catharsis, as if the topic or article someone shared was an invitation for people to vent their feelings about whatever is wrong in their lives
  • Ignoring what a person actually said, and instead responding to a strawman argument of their own invention, and delighting in getting angry over what they imagine the person to have said
  • Deciding to hate someone ahead of time, before even reading their work, and dismissing what they have to say or denouncing them without caring what they are actually saying
  • Taking things out of context to make them look bad, or getting angry about a statement that was clearly taken out of context and not looking for the original source to see if the anger is even justified
  • Immediately jumping to the worst conclusions about a statement without first clarifying what the person meant by it
  • Using excessive hyperbole, such as the ever popular claim that someone is violent and oppressive because they have a different analysis of a social phenomenon, or that someone is “literally killing” others by having a wrong opinion
  • Engaging in unnecessary and pointless drama, such as stirring people up on purpose on topics that are controversial, and jumping into arguments that don’t involve you just because you like arguing and adding inflammatory comments to an already smoldering argument

I have radar up for these behaviours because I know that people behaving like this will just take up my energy on pointless frustration, and I’m done engaging with people who can’t have a mature conversation. I’ve left many Facebook groups because I see lots of these behaviours going on, and I just don’t want to hang out with unreasonable people. The groups I stay in are the groups of people who I put into the “traditional mainstream feminist” category and where nobody is causing drama for the sake of drama.

Lots of these problems are a product of social media. Here’s a fun anecdote about how different things are between social media and real life. One time a feminist woman called me a troll. I forget what the conversation was or why she said that, but I was pissed. I decided I wanted nothing to do with her ever again. Then about three years later I met her in real life, and we had a lovely time together and she was very kind to me. I don’t think she even remembered that she once called me a troll.

We spend so much time trying to “correct” people who are wrong on the Internet, and we see people’s typed statements but not their flesh and blood reality, and we don’t take the time to ask “what did you mean by that?” when a statement sounds odd. But even people who type out dumb shit online might be perfectly nice in real life. You were just a screen name and a statement to them, they didn’t know anything about you and the dumb shit they said truly had nothing to do with you the real person, and it had everything to do with them trying to “correct” whatever they read into your statement. Internet culture encourages us to write witty comebacks and funny put-downs rather than engaging maturely with each other.

In my first few years of using the Internet, I did get engaged in online drama. I think that online drama can be addictive. You get a rush of emotion from reading stuff that you believe is wrong or stupid, and you enjoy both the anger and the righteousness of correcting someone who’s wrong. When there’s nothing to fight about, you get bored, and want that rush of anger again, so you jump into another argument. Years ago I used to argue online about abortion a lot, and I don’t anymore. I consider the matter settled that if you want abortion to be illegal then you’re a misogynist, and I’m done trying to convince people that a born woman is more important that a fertilized egg. People who think that a fertilized egg is more important that a fully-grown woman aren’t reasonable people and they’re not going to change their minds, and there’s no point in wasting energy on them. I must have argued about socialism at some point, too, because I remember this guy who was furiously angry over his idea that socialists wanted him to share his bed and his toothbrush with other people. That’s not true, socialists don’t want people to share their beds and toothbrushes with strangers. This is an example of inventing a strawman argument and delighting in getting angry over it. When you see people doing that, you have to walk away. That’s not a person who wants to have a real conversation.

Recently the fight that comes up among radical feminists came up again, the classic fight about whether it’s morally acceptable to be heterosexual. A giant shit storm happened, and lots of women were really upset. I read through a long comment thread and I saw that there were a ton of people who were misunderstanding other people’s statements without asking for clarification, jumping to the worst possible conclusions about other people, calling people names, arguing against straw men and jumping into the argument to add to the drama instead of just leaving it alone. All I could do was shake my head.

Every once in a while we have to remind ourselves of a few important things:

(1) “radical feminist” should not be thought of as an identity,
(2) purity politics gets us nowhere, and
(3) online arguments don’t define feminism.

Identity politics have infiltrated everything, including feminism. Some people get caught up in thinking that we can determine whether or not a woman is a “radical feminist” by assessing whether she meets certain criteria in terms of her personal characteristics and choices. This is totally the wrong approach. We should all understand the root cause of women’s oppression and we should do things to improve the structure of society to benefit all women. At no point does it matter whether someone is labelled “radical feminist” or not, or whether she meets certain personal criteria. There are women all over the world fighting against things like FGM and child marriage, and for women’s rights to be educated and to live free of violence. These women are working for women’s liberation and they’ve never read any of the radical feminist theory that comes out of first world countries. They don’t need to. They already know that men are enslaving women because they are enslaved. It doesn’t matter whether they take on the label “radical feminist” or not. The actions are important, and the label is irrelevant. Same thing in first world countries—our actions matter, our labels do not. If you see women policing whether other women are “real radical feminists” or not, they’re doing identity politics and this is in fact liberal, not radical. It’s also pointless. You don’t have to get upset about what they say, because it doesn’t matter whether or not you meet other people’s criteria for an identity label that they’ve constructed.

Purity politics is something that happens in many groups, and I’m sure it happens on the right as well (whether someone is a “real Christian” or not, etc) but of course I am familiar with purity politics on the left. I myself have attempted to be as ideologically pure as possible, and so I’ve learned how this approach doesn’t work. In high school I learned about environmental destruction and cruelty to animals and the wasting of natural resources and all these things that we on the left care about. I wanted to make my footprint on the world lighter, use less resources, and harm less animals. I stopped eating meat for a few years, and I was trying not to use much electricity for a while. At one point I thought that using a washing machine to wash clothes was too much energy wasted, and I attempted to wash my clothes by hand. Boy, is that labor-intensive! But here’s the thing. If you are alive and in a first world country, you are complicit in all sorts of systems of oppression no matter what lifestyle choices you make. No matter how hard you try to be a good person, you are still oppressing somebody. You can stop eating meat, but even the way our industrial agriculture produces grains and vegetables is harmful to animals. If you eat anything at all, you’re harming animals and the environment. You can wash your clothes by hand, but they were created in sweatshops by people working for low wages, and you are still complicit in their oppression. And even if you manage to be as eco-friendly as possible in your own home, you still haven’t overthrown the system that is destroying the planet and you are surrounded by businesses that are doing damage on a way larger scale than your household is. Anytime you buy a product from a store, pay interest on your debts, and pay either rent or a mortgage, you are contributing to capitalism. The computer you use to read about how to be more politically correct was also made in a sweatshop by oppressed workers. There will always be something else you are doing wrong, and you can never be politically pure. The only way you can avoid doing any harm to any other creature or the natural environment is by killing yourself. Of course, the paradox there is that if you kill yourself to avoid doing any harm, you are harming yourself, therefore you are still doing harm. So you literally can’t not do any harm. (Double negative intended.) This means there is no way to be ideologically pure and this pursuit is not worth your energy. People who are acting holier-than-thou and being a better feminist or leftist than you are actually not accomplishing anything. They are just being self-righteous, and it’s not justified because they are personally doing things to contribute to the destruction of the planet and the oppression of humans as they speak. Anyone who’s typing on a smart phone is not politically pure because there are suicide nets outside of the factories that make smart phones because the working conditions are so bad. If someone is typing to you on her smart phone that you’re a handmaiden because you have a boyfriend, ask her if she’s succeeded in unionizing the female workers who made her smart phone yet. If she hasn’t, then she’s a handmaiden. But seriously, if people don’t think you measure up to their idea of political purity, you don’t have to get upset. You just have to do the best you can with the situation you’re in, and try and do the least destruction possible, and try to do the most good possible.

My third point up above, if you have been keeping track, was that online arguments don’t define feminism. We who access the feminist community online start to feel over time like feminism is something that happens online, and that fights among Internet users represent rifts in the movement. Not really, no. Remember that work is being done all around the world for women’s liberation, and tons of women who have never read feminist theory or cared about labelling themselves with a particular strand of feminism are doing excellent work every day. Tons of women who don’t have Internet access, and some of whom don’t even have electricity, are working for women’s liberation every day. Even if there is a big fight online, and even if some women claim to be “quitting feminism” because of problematic people, there are still millions of women who get up every day and go to work in jobs where they are making the world safer for women, and there are women from all walks of life speaking out against the predators and the barriers they are facing in their lives, and there are mothers raising feminist children, and there are schoolgirls punching out the boys who pull their bra straps, there are police arresting pimps, there are survivors of prostitution helping other women get out, and the list goes on and on forever. The fights on the Internet are almost irrelevant to the movement, really. They are a tiny blip on the radar. The movement is much, much, bigger than any online community.

Obviously, if there are people you love and support who are getting into nasty arguments, it will hurt. Of course it will hurt! But the sun will rise again every day, and the worldwide women’s liberation movement will continue, whether or not some people on the Internet are behaving in unsatisfactory ways. Deal with the hurt quickly and then move on—there’s lots of better things to do.

60 thoughts on “Feminism and online fighting

  1. This is way too relativist for me. There is no way to do absolutely no harm except by killing yourself as you said, but only negative utilitarians want to do zero harm. The rest of us consider morality to be doing less harm, balanced against the positives of life. We condemn rapists and serial killers not because they are doing some sort of “absolute harm” – they haven’t destroyed the world, but they are still doing serious unnecessary harm, and that’s bad. More harmful and less harmful choices are not ethically equivalent. You make it sound like because there’s no way to be “perfect,” there’s no point in trying to live morally.

    Liked by 2 people

    • The availability of choices, the range of available choices, is not an absolute. It is a cultural construct that is in turn a function of worldview. To reduce life to choices of different values that are extant within the dominant culture ignores this.

      Liked by 1 person

    • I think she’s talking about ‘purity politics’, where people are making a sort of game out of creating identities based on ideas of personal and political purity. It looks like the writer is pointing out both the uselessness of that game, and the fact that the practical work of feminism is going on all over the world unaffected by the ideological squabbles on the internet. And, at the risk of getting into a squabble myself, it appears that you are creating a ‘strawman’ by positing that she is saying “there’s no point in trying to live morally”, which is really silly, considering that she is spending so much time and energy writing about fairness, ethics, and morality, encouraging readers to look at complex issues with reason and compassion, the whole point being to live morally.

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      • But she said she gave up being vegetarian and washing her clothes by hand because, “If you are alive and in a first world country, you are complicit in all sorts of systems of oppression no matter what lifestyle choices you make. No matter how hard you try to be a good person, you are still oppressing somebody.” So it’s not just a question of politics – she’s justifying life choices based on this philosophy. And her whole argument is essentially we shouldn’t criticize people for doing things we consider immoral, because nobody’s perfect. That shuts down every ethical discussion it’s possible to have.

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        • I don’t see how you interpret it another way. She said, “If someone is typing to you on her smart phone that you’re a handmaiden because you have a boyfriend, ask her if she’s succeeded in unionizing the female workers who made her smart phone yet. If she hasn’t, then she’s a handmaiden.” This is suggesting that when someone criticizes you, to criticize them back about a completely different subject. Imagine if when she criticizes libfems for treating a consumer lifestyle as “empowerment,” they responded, “Have you stopped paying taxes that fund legislation of women’s reproduction yet?” That’s using relativism to shut down discussion. It’s not an ethical stance to take.

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        • I just read this as “You’ll never be perfect like some latter day Julian of Norwich, it’s an impossible task”, not “Oh, just consume at will people, it’s all pointless anyway.”

          I, for example, use a washing machine. However, aside from underwear and footwear, all my clothes are bought second hand.

          Am I Julian of Norwich? No. Am I a consumerist fiddling while Earth and its people burn? Also no. Just a person doing her best and accepting that compromises are unavoidable.

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        • In the case of vegetarianism, encouraging meat eaters to eat more vegetarian meals has had the greatest impact so far. Asking people to do what they can, stating facts about the good that can be done, is infinitely more productive than berating people for not being 100% vegan. I am vegan myself, i try to praise people for the meals they eat that are vegan and tell them how much water they have saved, for instance. The discussion that PSF is referencing is not productive dialogue or analysis, it is literally trying to establish hierarchy through tearing others down. There is a radfem gossip tumblr if you need examples of the kind of destructive infighting being discussed. It’s extremely personal and mean.

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        • Did you ever, once in your life, stop to think that plants are living beings too, and that we probably hurt them in some way when we harvest them and eat them, especially since they don’t die as quickly as animals do–and that we kill them, period, by eating them and by all the other ways we use them?

          Stating that it is somehow worse to hurt an animal than to hurt a plant because you “respect life” is breathtakingly ignorant and hypocritical. You’re an animal. I’m an animal. What the living hell do we understand about being a plant? No more than a “trans woman” understands about being female. Zero actual real-world experience. So maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that veganism is “not taking a life.”

          Especially when growing plant crops, even in permaculture, even organically, requires killing animals from time to time. (Remember, insects are animals.)

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        • Dana If you are really that concerned about the welfare of plants, then you should definitely be vegan, because vegans kill massively fewer plants than meat-eaters or vegetarians. It takes 12 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, and much, much more plant matter than that to produce grassfed beef. 70% of US grain production is fed to livestock. 5 million acres of rainforest are felled every year in South and Central America alone to create cattle pasture. Every animal either eats plants themselves, or ultimately eats something that ate plants. Every step up that chain requires a huge increase in energy expenditure, which is why there are always a fraction of the predatory animals in a given population compared to the prey animals. If you want to kill the fewest plants but still live, you should eat them directly, not cause the deaths of all the plants eaten by all the animals you eat and use.


  2. Thank you for writing this! Social media is a minefield and a place where many people seem to think it’s ok to behave like jerks. I took a break a while ago and focused on getting myself to a place where I could cope with all the nasty stuff. I’m glad I did because it allows me to focus on the constructive side of things rather than doubting my worth because others are incapable of respect if you happen to have a Wrong Thought. It’s funny, because I’ve been involved in discussions of scientific issues and their denial for years. I’ve been attacked, smeared, ridiculed and so on on a regular basis. However I wasn’t prepared for being attacked by people allegedly on my side when I started getting involved in discussions on gender identity, and I used to struggle with it a lot. But now, even when other lesbians treat me like an idiot whilst misrepresenting my points, I see it for what it is: a reflection of them, not me. The mute, block and unfollow buttons are my friends, too 😉

    I’m not sure where this need for purity politics comes from. It just frustrates me because it stops us from pooling our resources and focusing on those issues that need addressing. It creates unnecessary divisions and lets male supremacy off the hook. Women attacking other women plays right into men’s hands. Not that I’m blameless: I get frustrated with liberal/choice feminists on a regular basis, but spending energy there is just a distraction so I need to be more aware of what I’m doing. But really, we women are all in it together. We’re all trying to navigate a world that was designed by men to benefit men. Scratch the surface and the stories you hear reveal a lot of pain. I read the work of women who are insightful, thoughtful, fearless and witty. Yet they speak of their struggles with the effects of trauma and sexual violence, of their mental health, of their difficulties with running a household as a single parent, etc. Let’s cut each other some slack and agree to disagree on those things that are not fundamentally important.

    So thank you for your perspective and a reminder of all the great work women are achieving across the world. Sometimes it’s just what we need to remember in order to push on 🙂

    Liked by 7 people

      • It’s weird, because while that was always my attitude with people on the other side of the debate, I struggled a lot when it happened with people allegedly on my side. I think I’m just frustrated right now because I know some lesbians are struggling after being targetted by other lesbians. The world is messy, our lives are messy and it would be nice if we all remembered that many women are struggling one way or the other to some extent. It’s so frustrating.

        Liked by 3 people

        • Same here. I don’t even care when I get hate messages from the trans cult (they remind me that I’m a “bigot” on a regular basis) but when one of my own is upset with me, that gets upsetting.

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  3. What I notice among the more purity obsessed separatist feminists, those who do seem more interested in criticizing other women than debating with them, is how much pain they’re in. They’re so often women who have been abused by the men in their families, or the men they were married to, or they’ve suffered that and been through the sex industry to boot.

    That said there are also people who just like stirring shit up.

    This is a great article.

    Liked by 5 people

    • I have thought about the mental health problems caused by trauma, some of it is relevant (black and white thinking, hypervigilance, etc). I would say a majority of women are struggling with the effects of men traumatizing them. I don’t know how that can be addressed exactly, it can be very hurtful to have other women express concern about your mental health. We have all been called crazy to dismiss our words before, anything resembling those sentiments can be terribly hurtful. A minority of women who become emotionally abusive in response to trauma are an additional problem that complicates things even more.

      Liked by 3 people

      • I hoped to word my comment not to imply that someone who acts out is mentally ill, I know how dismissing that can be, especially when so many of us have been through the mill and don’t lash out. When I say pain I don’t mean necessarily that they’re ill, just that I wouldn’t want to write someone off as an asshole when I know there are mitigating circumstances. What I hate is seeing one woman attacking another in an online discussion, when I know the woman being attacked is in a really crappy situation herself.

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        • That can be really difficult. While I know women can be in such terrible situations that it drives them quite mad, there are also some kinds of behaviors and positioning that are just unacceptable. I get sad when I see women ganged up on for their views but at the same time, when you’re dealing with stuff like overt racism (as a salient example) it’s just not appropriate to let it slide.

          I don’t think feminism should just be about trying to move higher up in the hierarchy, or else it becomes an elitist movement and doomed to fail. But a lot of women don’t see it that way, and that concerns me.

          Otherwise, you’re basically an equality feminist, and while I don’t want to disparage such efforts – I don’t want to disparage any efforts by anyone to try to improve anything at any level – it’s not particularly radical, it does not look to the root of the problem, which is essentially about living beings seen as property in order to support social hierarchies.

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  4. Oh god . And immediately we have a comments thread full of people thinking this is aimed at them personally .
    Guess what kiddoes, it is . Just not in the way you’d like it to be .
    Hey , I’ve spent the last few weeks calling out this new identifarian streak – on my timeline [and in the very large grouping admin ] – and can identify with every goddam word of this .
    Sage my love , I’m neck sore from nodding .

    Much love , Sinead XXXX

    Liked by 7 people

  5. “Purity politics” is usually code for “I’m not really interested in giving up creature comforts for a movement”. No disrespect to anyone who isn’t. I get it. But using those words to throw shade at women who *are* willing doesn’t allow for a continuing conversation about resistance and smacks of cool girl feminism. It creates an unnecessary divide; instead of talking about ways women actually can resist on a spectrum, it pits *them* against *us* even more than women who suggest that the unwillingness to commit to a truly radical idea undermines it.

    The fact that you have reduced the current conversation to a question whether its ok to be het tells me that either you are ok mischaracterizing events or you don’t understand the issues. It is not in line with radical feminism to seek to control and dominate other women, to shut out anyone who disagrees, to abuse women financially. That’s what started the current shitshow. Is it purity politics to reach peak (name withheld) and to say enough is enough when a woman purposely divides for literal years for her personal benefit? Minimizing women’s feelings about abusive behavior in our communities does every woman a disservice. We get enough of that (out there).

    Further, radical feminism in practice has particular characteristics. To say that a woman isn’t a radical feminist based on a severe lack of praxis and refusal to think deeply about/willingness to undermine resistance isn’t practicing identity politics. While we may actually agree on the general utility of such an argument, it is again, a reductionist position to claim that women who know praxis matters are adherents of identity politics.

    I did appreciate some of what you say in this piece, particularly about women in their own communities doing their best to disrupt patriarchy and allowing ourselves to feel hurt and move on. That’s a valuable discussion. I just don’t feel I can have it in good faith with the walls you have created with your language.

    Liked by 5 people

    • You talking to me? If so, I don’t particularly see any need to engage with you. You’re condescending and your writing is convoluted. Try talking to us plain folks, maybe you’ll get somewhere.

      Liked by 1 person

    • I may not have been entirely accurate there, sorry. What you said was “Minimizing women’s feelings about abusive behavior in our communities does every woman a disservice. ” I am not minimizing anyone’s feelings about abusive behavior. There are some abusive women in our community and they cause real harm, which is something I have witnessed. I am actually speaking out against abuse here, not trying to minimize it. I think that was quite clear. It sounds like you’re reading something into my post that is not there.

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      • Do you keep your radar up for that list of behaviors when you reply to others or does it not apply to you? You seem particularly fond of.conversation stoppers.

        I wrote a detailed, specific response to your piece, based on actual words that I read. I feel you minimized the recent events by reducing the content of women’s arguments to whether or not it’s ok to be het. In doing so, you squarely place the blame on what you call purity politics and the women you think practice them vs on the agent of the abuse. Or maybe there is another internet fight I’m not aware of? I don’t think that is the case. I do think however that it is easy to consistently point fingers at women with particular sets of ideas rather than engage with said ideas. The fact that you liked Miep’s lazy, dismissive response tells me that this reductive finger pointing is what you intended. Who is practicing identity politics here? Who thinks they are the *right kind of feminist*?

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        • We could also ask, “Who’s being especially aggressive and hostile here?” You came in with all guns blazing and now you’re giving us shit for being defensive. Come on, woman. Tone it down.

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        • I am allowed to be angry about this piece, which misrepresents what happened and also blames women who were not the agents of the abuse. I have not called you names or failed to provide reasons for the way I feel, but that was done to me, by you Miep. I feel that the responses to my comment lack integrity. But, well, maybe that’s my purity politics speaking.

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        • Resist, we might be talking about the same conversation, or we might not be. It’s quite possible that more than one of these conversations has happened recently. Before getting upset that I misrepresented a conversation, you should first make sure we’re in fact talking about the same one. You are welcome to send me an email if you want to name specific names in a private message. psage681@gmail.com.

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        • There is only one major shitstorm at the moment, so I’m fairly certain we are talking about the same one. That said it is possible that there is another ongoing disagreement somewhere I am not. You have my email, please message me with general information to see if it lines up with mine. No names needed, it will be obvious.

          Since that only addresses a small portion of my comments, I need to say that I stand by everything else I said even if I am mistaken about who did what now. And if I am wrong about what argument I’m referring to I will be accountable for that here..

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        • Wow, so you are aware of every shitstorm going on everywhere? Amazing!
          I don’t need to email you. You are the one who has a problem, so if you want to sort it out, that’s up to you.

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      • Did I LITERALLY not just admit to the possibility of some less major shitstorm? Yes, yes I did. But I’m right that it’s the same one, I’m sure of that now.

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    • Resist has taken it upon herself to decide that instead of writing about how purity politics and policing the identity of the “radical feminist” is a waste of time, I should have instead explained the nuance and complexity of a recent fight that happened online, which is a portion of the reason I wanted to write about this topic.

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      • Not what I said at all. Your interpretation is disingenuous. Why do you continue to insult me? Because I criticized what you wrote? That’s some incredible fragility there.

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        • I haven’t insulted you at all. You’re trolling here and I’ve given you lots of chances already to make some sort of coherent argument, but you’re just here to be hostile. I suggest that if you aren’t satisfied with this blog, it’s probably time to read something else.

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        • Trolling? Thats a stretch. So now, according to you, when a false claim is made women should just shush and not challenge it? Its ok sister, I’ve leaned how you operate and I’m moving on because there is no communicating with people who act in bad faith.

          I’m sorry that’s how life works for you.

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        • Lmao that’s what I was going to say! I cannot count the number of times that anyone trying to de-escalate conflict was accused of not being committed enough to give up this or that.

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  6. “there are social constructionist types who think we are born completely blank slates and everything about ourselves comes from socialization”
    No… no one believes in blank slate any more. It’s just an insult now and it’s very silly. Social constructionism does not imply believing in blank slate theory at all. I’m an ethical intuitionist so… lol

    Liked by 2 people

  7. I’ve blocked so many people over exactly this. It used to devastate me, but I am now in a place where if it’s true, I own it and if it’s not, who cares? My pet peeve is when people go out of their way to play games, insult, antagonize and behave like a troll, then deny that they are trolling and act like the victim when you don’t entertain them.

    Liked by 4 people

  8. Excellent article PSF. I’m seeing the same thing these days. Now the point seems to be to ostracise women who ‘stooped’ to use conservative venues such as the Heritage Foundation. Apparently feminists who associate with any conservatives at all are now suspect.

    Although I’m not a conservative but rather a socialist, I find this very disturbing. It seems to imply that when I speak to those (especially men!) who I know disagree with radical feminism (usually they don’t know what it means), I must somehow be becoming more conservative and thus subject to being ousted from a feminist group. I just don’t understand why some women are so willing to throw women who disagree under the bus without even hearing them out.

    It also implies that if I speak to identifarians, I will become one myself!


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