For the record, I have not had to censor anyone attempting to comment to this thread, besides the usual spam. Nothing like the load Heart gets, but definitely annoying. Is this the calm before the storm, or has Kitty given up this confounded vendetta?

We just aren’t all going to agree on everything, that’s all. I’m not angry at all the passion here, but I do know I am situated differently in life. Since I really don’t know any of you at all, I’ll just have to focus on what moves me to think and act in the world, what energizes me creatively, and hope that in the long run, sisterhood will prevail. That’s the best I can do folks.

Aletha, your perceptive comments on Hillary are actually true, as is the corruption of the democratic party. Both parties have completely sold out to corporate interests and we’re in real trouble with the rise of corporate unchecked power now. Just read a book called “Blackwater” and see what they’re really doing in Iraq.

But anyway, what I’m getting at, is I don’t see Hillary as a bad bad woman. I know she is trying hard, and I know the Clintons definitely reached out to the lesbian and gay community back in the days when NO other major candidate was doing this. I tend to have loyalty to those who try, and I know when Bill Clinton talked about lesbians and gays in his inaugural speech, it really caused my family to get it, and my relationship with my family has improved a lot because of Bill. I know, this sounds a bit… oh I don’t know soft hearted Aletha, but there you have it.

I don’t see the mainstream as capable of really changing without the input of the innovators. We Aletha and others are the innovators and we do the best we can.

I respect every woman who challenges patriarchy. It’s a more urgent matter for me, and so I put this at the top of my list each day. I know work places are tricky, and not all of them are safe. Mine is not safe either, but I’ve done a lot of work to be able to serve, and not compromise my values. I have to be the pioneer, because that’s what I know how to do.

Politics these days is very complex. We have sold out as a nation to corporte power and profit. Believe me, when you’re in finance you can see this all the more. It is a sad sad thing. I rely on blogs like this one and Heart’s to keep up on things, and to challenge myself, because I don’t want to get complacent here. We can all get complacent or tired, but the energy of sisterhood is a dynamic and powerful thing. Thanks Aletha for being so patient with me. I know I’m not well liked by some and liked by others, and some people spark my attention and others don’t.

But we are in this together. We can and will advance the cause of women worldwide. What we say matters!

Thanks again and let’s all try to be better feminists in a very corrupt world. They were probably saying that in the Middle Ages no doubt

Leave me out of it.

My only concern with Satsuma’s remarks is that a woman would actually take her advice and find herself in jail or physically injured. After the year I’ve had, people calling me names on the internet ranks somewhere very near the bottom of my list of things I feel the need to worry about.

If I decide to respond further to Satsuma, then I’ll respond to her.

However, I will NOT be the excuse for this fight to continue.

I see Satsuma expressing anger at the enabling of patriarchy. Her anger may or may not be appropriate from the point of view of someone else, but she specifically and repeatedly excluded those confronting her, and she has done so again here. From my standpoint, I have to be more empathetic, since I am not in a position to feel safe to challenge sexism I encounter, most of the time. In my relationships, I certainly have, and I think I have taught a few men a few things. This did not prevent my brush with death, however.

Kitty, your feelings of being dismissed and abused may make sense to you, but this is not my experience with Satsuma, and I think you are holding onto a grudge that does not do you credit. Lying hypocrites? Yeah, Kitty, thanks for the sisterhood. Indeed. Would you care to elaborate? I always prefer to be informed about my blind spots. How is standing up for the right of a woman to express a point of view I may not like lying, or hypocrisy? Did you really expect your feeling of safety at womensspace to survive a presidential campaign? Free speech is an important principle to me, and I agree with Satsuma that there is no safety in this world, and particularly not for radical women.

Satsuma, I am curious about your remark about Hillary bashing. Do you not see her as colluding with the patriarchy? She challenges sexism in some ways, true, but it is hard for me to see how her policies differ from mainstream Democratic policies. From my point of view, feminist collaboration with the Democratic Party has been a big reason why feminists were forced into a defensive posture. That party is thoroughly opportunistic and unprincipled, and I think Hillary is no exception. Your remarks remind me of what is called political reality, which is considered practical, just the way things are, but which I reject as male self-serving fantasy.

Aletha, it is there in black and white, but you refuse to see it. Just read what she writes. She hates women. Women stupid, Satsuma King. It is in the words. READ READ READ! I will no longer indulge this man.

Kitty quotes:
“You know I suspected all along that that little group over there had secret meeting spots that never included me…”

“I suspected that many of its members did not think highly of me…”

For the record, I am not a member of some secret Internet group. You may be right Kitty, many of this group’s members did not think highly of you. I don’t think highly of you because you use swear words that are the words of rapist men. But you do use them and you do use them against women. So far you are not likeable, but also somehow I forgive you.

As always, I may not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it! Guess whose quote I am stealing here and you get 5 points for knowledge of 18th century history

You kind of remind me of my beloved lesbian groups back in the 80s. Something would blow up, and a woman would whine “I feel excluded.” Another favorite whine of my people back then was “I feel violated.” Anytime strong women leaders emerged, the other women would just pile on with the “I feel excluded!” “I feel violated!” complaints.

Now both these phrases seem like a cute and fond memory, and I realize that it is very hard for women to work together if they come from some oppressed group. Horizontal violence they call it. So what I do Kitty, is I observe everyday life, and I call things as I see them.

I try not to take criticism too personally, and I can fully appreciate women’s anger. Your anger does carry a bit of courage to it, but it also kind of sets you up. There are a lot of women out there who probably won’t feel all that kindly to some women who uses vulgarity in such a rude manner. It usually denotes youthful ignorance, or a lack of imagination.

Either way, it will send women to the “secret meeting place” and you’ll “feel excluded.”

I’m interested in your ideas, things you’re going to do to be creative in service to the great cause of women’s freedom worldwide. Now that would be exciting, because I think you have all of this in you. Don’t just beat up old Satsuma, although you can if it makes you feel better.

Old Satsuma, oh don’t you cry for me…. I’m a comin from Louziana with a banjoe on my knee…. that’s all folks

Being compared to Hugh Hefner, since I have always been against pornography, really takes the cake as best outrageous anti-Satsuma Cobra venom bite of the year (or possibly of the decade). People used to call me puritanical, but nobody I ever knew would even remotely consider calling me Hugh Hefner. Love the logic of women sometimes. It’s just name calling, but it bears no resemblance to an actual political or sociological belief. This one I’m going to retell as a great story. To my friends, I am THE most uptight, anti-sex, anti-pornography, puritanical 19th century type you could ever hope to meet. I even cringe when swear words are used in my presense. I had to tell friends who smoked pot to not do it near me. I’m just this person who hates those words, worlds and things everyone else always says: “But EVERYONE is doing this!”

Calling me Hugh Hefner, would be as outrageous as me calling straight women prostitutes for selling their bodies to men in marriage. That would be an ugly untruth, UNTRUTH for the internet deaf out there, and I would never ever think this. I’m just drawing a parallel between the name callers and their line of logic. You really have to be aware that I am observing the public behavior of women, and I am trying to understand why we haven’t advanced a lot farther in feminism and women’s self-government — however you choose to define this.

Who holds the movement back? Who upholds the status quo and why?
Who does it privately? Who does it publically?

Poor Hillary Clinton, too bad for her that she really is going for it, but you’d never know it to listen to what women say about her here.

The presidency is not about radical positions. Roosevelt created the New Deal because he was afraid of the power of Eugene Debs, who I believe got over a million votes on the Socialist party ticket. Mainstream democrats had to face socialism in America, that’s why they stole the ideas of Socialism. That’s where social security came from, for example.

Radical unionism and communism brought us the eight hour day. Communists supported African American civil rights in the 40s and 50s. There’s a great essay on a black man from the 40s I think, who learned how to read and write and become an activist, because Stalinist agents came to America to support African American freedom. I was astonished to read the account of this man’s life, and his loyalty to Stalin, just as a lot of the American left supported the Soviet Party line for a very long time.
They all claimed later that they didn’t know. Even anti-Shah Iranian feminists supported Khomeini in 1979. One woman told me quite recently that she didn’t know either. We had a very good talk, but that’s another story.

I see feminism in the same way. We radical feminists are just pushing the boundaries. We create the grassroots power that affects the mainstream candidates. Hillary Clinton may be a very bad president, we don’t exactly. But I trust her a lot more than I trust Edwards or McCaine or even Obama. I am sick of men getting that job since the beginning of this country’s history. I think she’ll do a pretty good job.

Now if you want this to change, you’d have to create a feminist country or even a feminist state government first. This is actually doable.

Men all the time predict that Hillary will not win, because WOMEN don’t support her. But Hillary really is a feminist in my book, and has been one ever since the 1970s. She has been on very good terms with lesbians, and for sure she isn’t perfect. She’s not radical, and I don’t expect many women to be radical.

I know that Hillary represents a kind of transition figure in women — first lady then Senator. You didn’t see this before. I respect women who step out and subject themselves to the incredibly hostile male dominated process known as electoral politics.

We at the grassroots create the movement and move it forward. Mainstream women jump on board as our ideas gain currency. Just a small example here: once upon a time, girls were not “allowed” to wear pants. Very few young women even know about this today. When I was in junior high, I wore pants to concerts I played in. I was the only girl who did this. The only one. Somehow, most of the kids just let it be, and so did the conductor. My Mom told me decades later about the really nasty things she heard women sitting near her at the concerts say about me. They had no idea that the vicious insults were overheard by the mother of the child they were bitterly attacking. I think it really freaked my Mom out.

What she was hearing was lesbian-hatred in the raw, only she didn’t really fully understand its meaning. Years later, she called a woman out for homophobia at a banquet she was attending. My Mom came out swinging, and I was proud of her courage. She’s very conservative, and yet, courage comes to her. It’s how change comes about in the world women.

Incidently, my Mom hates Hillary. She’s just too threatening for that generation of women who views her as a radical, a socialist and weak on terrorism. Hillary represents the challenge in a symbolic way. Do women support mainstram women in mainstream elections? What does it take for viable women out there to get the benefit of the doubt?

I know this is going to cause a tiz out there in blogland, because I perceive Hillary hatred and bashing as a new kind of radical feminist sport.

You don’t get radical anything in the U.S. presidency, except for maybe George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, and I’m sure we can all agree that we would have rather had Abigail Adams as a president back then.

We have to decide as radical feminists what we are pushing for to create the next level of acceptance in the mainstream. I’m doing my very best to be a completely out lesbian everywhere I go, including in scary conservative business environments. It’s my personal work, because (you won’t all believe this) but I am an incredibly charming person, and I have a million strategies for dealing with the most difficult and complex people.

I do call out the conservatives on the sexism, and I do challenge them for their homophobia. I can see sometimes their feeling of personal shame, because they were afraid to defend me from the backstabbing that people engage in to discredit lesbians and feminists. The men looked sheepish and ashamed. I knew they were too afraid of “peer group” pressure among their guy friends, they were afraid to call other men in an all male group out for womanhatred. The men in a sense, were failed allies.

I know it takes guts out in the world. We fail sometimes, and then decades later we have change. My Mom suffered in silence to hear all that mean attacking hatred of me back in 1970, but in 1996 she stood up to a homophobe at a “polite” event.

This all seems a bit off some topic, and I’m not sure about what I’m trying to get at here. I’m trying to make some point, and I’m searching for the words to say something that is a little beyond my grasp, and yet I know I am getting somewhere. I’ll have an answer soon women, it’s just my personal search in the world for the answers we need to move forward, to feel powerful, and to learn from each other. It sure isn’t easy for me, but I am trying!

‘Abusive” is an interesting word. How I translate it on Heart’s site — women use that word a lot there. Abusive is a comment women level at other women whom they don’t agree with. If you have a valid criticism about majorities and you are a minority, the majority labels calling out the majority as abuse. It’s the psycho babble that invaded feminism I think in the late 70s or possibly this woundology crept in in the 1980s.

Women get this crazy idea of safety. Somehow the whole feminist movement is supposed to be this cotton candy type place. There is no “safety” at all in the world. None anywhere, except that which you feel within yourself. There is no security in the world at all, except that which you create within yourself.

The genius of radical lesbian feminism, is that it invented an ideology to name things, to reveal political realities. For example, I’d always felt uneasy around all the “sex lesbian” stuff of the late 80s — On Our Backs, S & M — pornography– it made me sick, and I also felt somehow personally attacked by those who advocated feminist pornography. The whole sexual revolution seemed highly suspect to me as well. I couldn’t put my finger on this, I couldn’t name what it was that bothered me. Back in the day, this feeling of unease was labeled as “being uptight” “puritanical” etc. Radical feminism named pornography as terrorism against women’s bodies, and rape as a terrorist tactic to keep all women in line, which all men benefit from whether or not they have or have not raped any woman.

I think a lot of women have a lot of trouble with political commentary, because for the most part, they are untrained in the use of reason as a tool. Instead they take everything personally. Not all women, but I find that there are not many women who actually look at the logic of my arguments one way or the other. Straight women are the majority, and they do diss lesbians to preserve their place in patriarchy. They fear us often for reasons I don’t understand, but then again the threats that keep straight women culturally in line often have little or no affect on me.

In many ways, the power of heteronormativity creates a kind of indifference on my part. I don’t benefit from that world, so I feel no investment in it’s objectives — its perks, its seduction. Straight women are often seduced by male created “femininity.” This seduction goes into high gear in the fashion industry, the make-up industry and the multi-billion dollar diet industry, to name a few.

A lot of lesbians find this rather silly. A lot of us, not all, but a lot in my age group, are not interested in those worlds at all. We find the beauty of women something entirely different from the beauty a lot of straight women buy into. When women don’t buy into the beauty myth, some straight women go off calling us looking like men. But really, we are not looking like straight women, and most men would laugh at this. We are not at all like men, we are like lesbians — we are not straight, we don’t live by those values.

Our feminism isn’t the same as straight women’s feminism. Straight women simply have different issues and contradictions to deal with.

This type of discussion can often make many straight women in the world very uncomfortable. They are not used to the minority looking so closely at the majority’s public behavior. Yes, it does feel like the a revelation of a candid camera moment. So straight women get mad and counter attack lesbians for even pointing this stuff out.

Can women be honest about their different positions within feminism? Are women really in pursuit of freedom? Do women care about free speech?
Do most women even want to engage in a discussion of the actual issues?

We can all work to make the world better for women, but we do have to honestly deal with the isms out there. I would say that my comments aren’t abusive, they are more descriptive. It is generally true that I find majority women perplexing, and I wonder what prevents them from truly acting in their own self-interest to gain freedom in the world. This is an honest existential reflection on my part.

Actually now I am kind of laughing at being called King Satsuma; guess I’ll have to find where my kingdom is out in the world Or maybe I am Queen Satsuma, we may not know her country we may not know her queen… but we vow to thee our country all earthly things above perhaps.

I don’t respond to people who just go nuts calling me names. But I am interested in the women who are bright enough to see my larger arguments. Yes, it does take a lot of intelligence for straight women to even begin to get lesbians. I know it’s hard, you don’t usually have much access to our groups or culture. We’re off on our own, and a lot of us “blend in” in order to be able to function in so-called “women’s organizations. I say so-called because “women’s” is a code word for “straight women only.” If you’re not the out group, you can’t imagine why lesbians would be so critical of majority women. You get all bent out of shape because you’re used to running the show or the movement or whatever.

When lesbians gain more power, and create more publically available spaces, straight women are welcome to come into our culture, or become a part of our spaces. You’ll be the minority in our majority, and that’s where the most insight and learning occurs. It’s the same for white women who live in non-white countries — that way they begin to “get” racism, for example.

Since lesbians grew up, for the most part, in straight families, we know a lot more about you, then you know about us. When you insist that we communicate and walk on eggs to protect your delicate selves, well this gets a little exhausting. It’s the same thing men say about women: why don’t women act more like men to “get ahead.” That sort of thing.

There are women who find my words very refreshing. A lot of lesbians probably are afraid to speak out as directly as I do, because they actually fear the straight “masses” jumping on them and piling on. I guess, I always look for the few allies out there, and since straight people have been picking on my all my life, I have come to have very low expectations of both straight men and straight women in general.

Lesbians created a world we felt validated in. We created a feminism that made us feel powerful. We created the tools to make a better world for ourselves, and I can say that this made a huge difference in my life.

Suddenly I was free to pursue my dreams, and I didn’t have to bow down to heteronormativity at all. I never assimilated into that world, and yet I made my way out of cleverness and study, and just plain fun.

I rose despite straight people, not from any help they gave me. I took feminism farther than straight women really want to take it a lot of the time. Of course you’re going to get irritated when I point this out, but you can’t deny that our body of work and its influence world wide. That is if you have ever read any of our books to begin with. I am sure most of the straight women here have done extensive reading in radical lesbian feminism, and you understand well our critiques of heteronormativity. I assume great knowledge on your part, and I’m sure you’ll demonstrate this well in your commentary and points and counterpoints both here and elsewhere on the bloglands.

Helpful hint: words like “abusive” strike me as evasive, there is no such things as safety on blogs — intellectual virtuosity yes, uplift and power yes, but safety — well I don’t think straight women are very adept at “creating” safety for lesbians, but then again I simply don’t ever think you’ll do this. I don’t want to waste time on safety, but I love ideas and the power they give all women who sincerely want freedom without any compromise.