Well put Lori. This sentence in particular really resonated with me: "So often I'll see women bring up issues around power in male/female relations, the men cry foul and within a short period of time it has evolved into another thread on what men think, feel and want. It's maddening."

I read many feminist blogs and discussion forums and lately across the various groups a large number of posts about Female Genital Mutilation (a topic of renewed interest because of the recent news that Egypt has officially outlawed these surgeries) have been waylaid by male posters attempting to divert the discussion to the issue of infant male circumcision in the US, often directly comparing the two very different procedures-a comparison that's obscene when one realizes the full extent of the dysfunction, pain, scarring, loss of sensation, and risk of infection and death that the majority of FGM procedures result in, ills that plague the affected woman not just when the surgery is performed but throughout her life. When called on this bullshit (and, pardon my French, but there's really no other name for it), these commenters get all huffy and then whine that nobody cares about baby boys and why do girls get all the attention and shouldn't feminism be about them too?

After too many years of suffering this self-serving, disingenuous whine, my answer to this last question now is "NO!" No, it's not about you and it's never going to be about you-deal with it; no, you don't get a say in my movement just as you don't get a say in my life; and no, I really don't give a good god damn what you think about women or women's lives, and I especially don't care what you think feminism is supposed to be about or who and what we, as feminists, are supposed to pay attention to.

"As a mostly white person I know how incredible difficult it is to *see* the subtle benefits and power relations of race even when you are fully aware they are there. No matter how committed you are to equality, no matter how aware you may be, you're still a fish trying to become aware of water."

This is so true, even for intelligent people with good intentions. Second wave feminists had to examine their heteronormative view of the world and the privileges they gained from that and learn to sit back, shut up and listen when lesbians spoke. Third wave feminists are dealing with this same issue of giving up the floor, listening and learning from women of color. It is not easy and it's not necessarily very pleasant (particularly when you're a bright, curious person used to rapidly analyzing the world around you, drawing conclusions from that analysis and formulating further questions from those initial conclusions-heaven knows there are plenty of times I'm forced to bite my tongue) but it's something that has to be learned for genuine dialogue to occur. The sooner we all learn to *listen* and delay reaction when someone speaks of their experience, of their lives, the better off each of us, regardless of gender, color or orientation, will be.

I know what set me off was seeing yet another discussion of women and women's issues turning to men's issues.
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A-fucking-men, an thank you !

i'm having a hard time knowing where to start shannon. i think you're projecting quite a bit onto me, and have actually been a little mean here. from my point of view, we were talking about what common female interests would remain in a post-feminist world, and kip brought up menopause as being strictly female, which it is. i had just learned about andropause and knew little about it, and asked if she knew about it. it was a related but side conversation in my mind, especially because i have been beginning a study of endocrinology. kip implied that it was a non-phenomenon completely, as far as i could tell, so i asked her why she had that impression, and then shared thoughts from what i know about how something different yet coming from a similar process happens with men evolutionarily. it was a sidebar to me, though relevant and i thought interesting. if you want to talk about sex biologically, it is difficult not to talk about the correlative or counter process going on with men, right? i was asking questions and showed humility and warmth in the discussion as well - a humility which you have preyed upon in your unfriendly words, actually. and i certainly was happy to return to a women-centered discussion.


"You've since diverted the thread into a defense of your rather odd implicit assertion that because we can't clearly identify a universally 'female' experience, not even biologically, that there is no fundamental difference between biological females and males with regard to menopause.

Despite the fact that four women with the direct experience and/or biological apparatus to speak knowledgeably pointed out that this premise was fundamentally flawed, you persist. "

please reread my posts. i never claimed once that there is no fundamental difference between males and females with regard to the end of fertility. i was simply asking about it and sharing what i knew. i just don't see my disregarding women the way you have portrayed that here as being accurate, unless you count asking questions and for sources as disregarding!

i appreciate your sensitivity to these matters and understand the climate you are operating in to a degree, though i don't know about your particular personal story interacting with patriarchy. i recognize the context we're communicating in, and the likely assumptions you're making about me and my viewpoint. i just ask that you give me a little bit of breathing room here, and more of the benefit of the doubt. i know that 20 years of studying feminist theory and working on my third degree on gender and identity related theory, along with several years working in the field of the feminist philosophy of science comprise a major difference in my viewpoint from most men. like i said before, that doesn't mean i'm right or not sexist, but it does mean that i may be harder to figure out where i'm coming from than using the normal bag o' assumptions. can we try again here?