Have You Never Heard Of The Phrase "a Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day"? Trump Is Terrible And He Doesn't

[Boston Bisexual Women’s Network, June/July 1995]

Anything That Moves (Summer, 1991)

❝ BISEXUAL FREEDOM ❞

Genuinely proud of myself for being cigarette-free for an entire year today.

It bears stating from the onset that feminism is a broad church. There are splits and schisms within it, usually pertaining to what constitutes useful, meaningful action towards women's liberation. It is, however, to put the cart before the horse to start by placing into these furrows. One does not have to be a feminist to become one of the 'hounded', though to be feminist at all arguably requires agreement with the trio of Core Beliefs that follow. For the sake of both clarity and brevity, these three Core Beliefs are identifiable as the beliefs that are at question when a woman – feminist or not – is targeted for opprobrium in the gender wars.

Core Belief 1: Women are materially definable as a class of human being. That means that the category definition of 'woman' describes those humans who are adult and female. The only criterion for being a woman is to be a female girl who survives into adulthood. No other criteria are necessary: no personality traits, no interests, no adornment or style of dress, no mandatory life choice must flow from this definition. This is the realm of category definitions and not value judgements.

Core Belief 2: Women (as adult female humans), are culturally, legislatively and politically important, with their own sets of needs, rights and concerns. On the basis of being female, such women assert the need in particular for female-only spaces, sports, and other services on the basis of privacy, dignity and/or safety – or, simply, in recognition that equality and social justice cannot be achieved where males and females are included together with competing interests in whatever space is under discussion.

Core Belief 3: Where social, cultural or legislative trends are under way – ones that may diminish women's rights and/or liberation – then women have a right to meet and discuss freely that which affects their lives profoundly. As such, when women's events are protested disproportionately via attempts to shut them down or to intimidate attendees, the women involved will respond with even more rigorous calls for debate and reassertion of their right to freedom of speech and assembly.

– Jenny Lindsay (2024) Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars, pp. 1-2.

I don't know what makes me sadder; the bimbofication to become famous, or the fact that it worked.

I think we’re getting lost in the weeds if we start distinguishing between good (morally acceptable) and bad (selfish and vain) reasons to use a surrogate. 

Surrogacy, as a practice, is exploitative and unacceptable. It doesn’t matter why you’re treating another woman (likely a much poorer woman) like a broodmare because there is no acceptable reason to do so. It makes no difference if you’re doing it because you cannot become pregnant yourself, or because pregnancy would cause life-threatening complications for you, or simply because you don’t have the time or inclination to endure a pregnancy yourself. It’s all the same thing. It’s all exploitation.

It's the difference between understanding individual and systemic issues.

The fact that men are the most likely to be perpetrators of violence and abuse, where women are most likely to be the victims of violence and abuse proves that there's a systemic issue of male violence that victimises women.

That fact doesn't stop a woman being abusive to another woman, or a man being abusive to another man, or a woman being abusive to a man. In every individual case, the victim needs support and the perpetrator needs to face justice.

All that we can do is fight the systemic causes of overrepresented male violence to prevent as much harm against women as possible.

There will always be evil individuals that will commit evil acts because they want to. Even in what would otherwise be a utopia, there will always be those that harm because they enjoy harming.

But the MRAs won't acknowledge any of that. It's much easier for them to be misogynists and go "but what about...!" There is no what about. Male victims will need male-only spaces to find safety after escaping abuse and the MRAs can go support those individual victims. Meanwhile, feminists who actually give a damn want to destroy the roots of male supremacy that makes so many men feel like they're entitled to beat, abuse and rape women (and other men, but the MRAs forget about that part because it doesn't help them try to justify their hatred of women).

At the end of the day, if it was only a case of "well some abusers abuse and feminists obsess over male abusers," then rape and domestic violence statistics would show that male and female abusers and victims both hovering around the 50/50 mark - but that isn't what's happening, is it?

I hate when males bring up female abusers as if it’s supposed to deflect from the majority of abusers being men. As a girl who was sexually abused by another girl from ages 6-10 I can acknowledge that it happens but is nowhere near as common as a male being an abuser. Yes there are female abusers but that does not deflect from the fact that majority are men, no matter how many women abusers there are it will still never compare to the amount of male abusers.

stop rping with ghatgpt. you should be rping with a bisexual internet woman u have a relationship that constantly straddles the line between platonic and sexual with. tyou're ruining the ecosystem

gay men are not discriminated against because they're gay. they're hated because being attracted to men is seen as a feminine trait, and our society sees being a woman as shameful.

men, no matter their sexuality, are not oppressed.

gay men are not the victim.

The internet is amazing for unlearning what the patriarchy has taught us to be automatic. It's even better to practice personal feminism.

Because we're online, we can take a step away and analyse our thoughts if we feel angry, disappointed or disgusted at another woman. We have the ability to pause and not hate the woman that sneers at feminism, but feel grief for her and understand why she rejects it.

When we catch ourselves lashing out at other groups of women, the internet gives us the opportunity to work through those negative emotions and remind ourselves that patriarchy pits us against each other on purpose.

It's an incredibly powerful tool to use. Where else can we finally learn how to personally dislike another woman, to hate her views or wish that she was better educated, but not blame her for countless generations of patriarchy and still genuinely hope that she grows, succeeds, lives well, is happy and, most of all, safe? Where else is the space that allows us to go through the negatives to come out the other side, even when it's hard, without harming another woman?

In this space, where feminists will most likely agree on 90% of issues, there's still anger and infighting and backbiting thanks to the misogynistic female socialisation that tells us that nobody hates women more than other women, and that misogyny carrying on to think that other women want to trip you up or are readying themselves to attack to tear you down.

Men aren't thinking about how best to free women. We have to do that ourselves. Do you honestly think we can even come close to dismantling even one small section of patriarchy if we haven't learned to actually stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other women?

If you can't support and uplift and care for other women even in the same space with the same general ideals as you, how do you think you're going to be able to support and uplift and care for the women that hate everything that feminism stands for and promotes everything that feminism stands against? How are you going to be patient and understanding enough to teach her? How are you going to avoid victim-blaming her if she ends up being hurt?

That's why the internet is so useful. We can learn to dislike other women and step away from other women for our own sanities if we need to, we can understand that we will never be able to be best friends with every other woman, we can criticise other women and hold other women to account for their actions, but with this curated space and time to think, not being face-to-face, we can start the process of genuinely caring for every single woman anyway - especially the ones that we dislike the most.

I'd argue that that is the most important activism that feminists can do right now, the one that has to happen first before patriarchy can actually be ripped apart the way that it needs to be.