Wow.
A few people have linked to that recently, but I've only just read it. What an amazing and powerful piece of writing, hiding under the guise of a casual tone.
Seriously, go read that.
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Well....
16 hours ago
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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12 comments:
Very interesting.
During college I worked in a kind of hipster eatery/gathering place on campus. A number of my coworkers were WMST majors.
I had the opportunity to listen and participate in a lot of conversations.
I was amazed how, as a group, "WMST feminists" could be so unaware of how myopic their perspectives could be, how hypocritical they could be with sexism/bigotry/stereotypes, how arrogant they could be and how completely unwilling they were to admitting that like everyone else, they were vulnerable to these faults.
As a straight man who was able to be a fly on their wall I had many similar observations to the ones Raven wrote about in his essay.
I found it so validating and refreshing to read his essay. I never would have found it if I didn't see it on your blog.
Thank you for posting it.
beforewisdom: No group is immune to containing assholes, or from suffering under ignorance or arrogance. I'd still suggest that your generalisation is unwise and inaccurate.
That dude is a trans misogynist fucking asshole.
http://estrobutch.livejournal.com/4283.html
Lynn: He is? Clearly I've missed something. Would you elaborate, please?
Anony: Interesting. I read that passage differently, but I have a tendency to see privilege as far from binary.
I'm at the point where I don't use "mtf" or "ftm" at all anymore because they read as "MALE to female" and "FEMALE to male" but anyways he refers to trans males throughout the essay as just "ftms" and the one fucking time he refers to trans females he has to throw in the word "trannies". wtf?
And then the classic trans male jackass move is to do some theoretical masturbation around male privilege and how he doesn't really have it by emphasizing his female history and because no ones offered him a job on wall street yet.
And the whole point of the essay is bitching about trans male invisibility as if the visibility that trans women have isn't always somewhere between misogyinist punchline and death sentence.
Lynn I did go, wtf at the one use of trannie, seemed more mocking and not reclaiming. With regard to visibility, yes and no, yes visibility puts trans women at risk, but fuck, the first time I found out that people like me existed, that was a powerful day, I didn't know the feeling that I had where anything that anyone else had.
His analysis of intersection of privilage is *disappointing* he seems to miss that he has male privilege, and that doesn't mean rich white male privilege, and he fails to recognise that women don't always have those privilages.
Yeah I missed that before but i'm estrobutch on lj.
Chesire-bitten-
I hear you. My life would be a lot easier if I knew trans ppl like me existed and that transition was an option. I think that visibility to the cis feminist academics that he's talking about or visibility in the media isn't something that helps kids trying to come out as trans. The kind of visibility we need should be done by and for trans people and be accessible to the majority of humans who don't know what WMST stands for.
Last comment I meant if I knew about trans stuff *when I was a kid*.
hexy said...
beforewisdom: No group is immune to containing assholes, or from suffering under ignorance or arrogance. I'd still suggest that your generalisation is unwise and inaccurate.
Hexy;
I wasn't trying to give the impression that I thought these women were "assholes" (your choice of words ) when I mentioned their shortcomings in how they handled their beliefs in regards to feminism.
I've met, known and know many feminists. A number of them are pretty cool.
However, a number of them have the same faults in regards to handling their beliefs that I described.
Those feminists, while they are not all feminists are also not an infrequent minority.
It is not my intent to offend just to voice my personal experience.
beforewisdom: I still think your comment is more accurate if you substitute "humans" for "feminists".
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