I am posting this in support of Jennifer McLune from Celie’s Revenge. You can read Karla Mantilla’s actual response on redmegaera’s blog and make up your own mind. I *do* think Off Our Backs has a hell of a lot to answer. If I was treated the way that Karla Mantilla admits to treating Jennifer I would speak out about it too. Her characterisation of Jennifer as nasty and vindictive has no basis in reality.
A statement has just been released by the man who is the core member of a group called “Men Support Women” on the controversy surrounding him and his collective’s behavior regarding a woman who recently left their group due to their sexism. See if you find any sexism in what follows:
I am writing this as only Karl, not on behalf of “Men Support Women,” of which I am a collective member. “Men Support Women” is a man-organized, man-controlled, man-majority collective and magazine. We have a website and also a presence on Facebook. Over our thirty years, we have occasionally had women work for us and with us. But we have always staying in control of production and content. While we actively support women, we have never sought to have this be a magazine or group RUN by women. And we haven’t set up any systems of accountability to women, because we already know how not to be sexist. Our thirty years of work demonstrates that very clearly. This current issue concerns a woman who came on board–who we invited into our space–about a year ago. She was supposed to be working with us, but slowly I began to notice some problems with her that made me question to what degree I should deal with her at all. I came to the conclusion that not telling her how I felt, and just not responding to her questions would be the most pro-woman thing to do. While I am the de facto leader here, I don’t see myself that way. I just see myself as one of the group. Jane did develop more of a connection with me than with any other men. She’s had some bad experiences with men in the past and is reluctant to form bonds with men, which is her issue, not mine. I still feel I responded appropriately and within the ethical bounds of the collective.
Some background: Recently Jane, a feminist blogger and activist, has made some allegations about her experience with “Men Support Women.” This transpired after she was fired from her job and sent out an email letting those around her know what had happened. She seems to have expected us to come running to her, to support her. We have our own stuff to deal with. One of the men we had selected to put out our next issue has been having some serious personal family issues, and we have made time to check in with him. There have been other men in need or our attention as well, and I didn’t see any reason why I, personally, should be in any way obligated to reach out in a gesture of compassion and support to a woman who I think is nuts. After being fired, she found out I had had a birthday party, and hadn’t invited her. One of the other men in the collective let her know this. She began to wonder if I was distancing myself from her. I saw no reason to let her know I was doing exactly that. Why shoul
She did not contact me directly about her issues, nor did she indicate during her time with us that there were any serious problems with our organization, or, specifically between her and me. A male colleague of mine has, I think accurately, indentified her as a woman who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. She has done some really bizarre stuff, which will be detailed below. Due to her taking over our Facebook page, for example, we had to create a new one with men as administrations, not a woman. This is our organization, after all. It is MEN Support Women, not WOMEN Support Women!
I personally think the woman is seriously mentally ill, unpredictable, and dangerous, and that’s why I stopped initiating contact with her. I’m sure you will understand my actions when you read what follows, and come to the conclusion that both I, Karl, and the collective, operate out of the values of honesty, integrity, and full accountability to women. I don’t see how you could come to any other conclusion. But please just read on, men and women.
The following is my reluctant answer to the wholly outrageous, unsubstantiated, and ridiculous charges made about The Pro-Feminist Journal of late by Jane. I take no pleasure in making these matters public or in causing pain or anguish to anyone, including Jane.
For people who have access to this dispute only on the internet, I know it can be exceedingly difficult to sort out the merits of the charges that have been levied against me and against “Men Support Women”–both the collective and magazine. It is entirely understandable that it would be difficult to know whom to trust in this matter. Nevertheless, I urge you to consider all the facts before you come to a conclusion. I also urge you to consider that not everyone who posts something on a blog on the internet is honest or is acting in good faith.
Below, I lay out some significant inconsistencies and internal contradictions in the claims and statements that Jane has made. I believe that if you look at these facts with an open mind and in honest good faith, they will, at a minimum, establish some serious doubts regarding her claims:
• On her Women Fight Back blog, in one of her initial statements, Jane wrote, “Ask Karl & Company why they removed the only woman member of their collective!” implying that the collective had removed her.
• At another place, she cites her email where she herself quit the collective, saying: “But since certain individuals have suddenly for some mysterious reason decided to become M.I.A, rude, and unresponsive towards me, I’m officially removing myself from the production team and the collective.”
• Even though she quit the collective, she feigns surprise that she is no longer on the collective: “I knew for certain that I’d been officially removed by them from the actual collective only when I saw a new Facebook group for MSW created and my name not included among the list of collective members.”
• She disingenuously makes no mention of the reason we started a new Facebook page: Within days after she resigned, she deleted all the official administrators of the off our backs group Facebook page–except herself, thereby hijacking our group Facebook page after she had officially resigned from her capacity as a collective member. Even more outrageous is that she went so far as to block all Men Support Women collective members from even being able to see our own Facebook page, OUR MSW page. She similarly hijacked the MSW Twitter account, which as far as I am able to ascertain she still retains control of.
• She wrote on her blog that “Only two people responded [to her mass email announcing she was laid off]. And neither of them was from the [MSW] collective.” Yet, out of only four other men on the collective, two did respond, Andy and Larry (I can provide screenshots of these emails, but won’t right now.) However, it is true that I did not respond.
These contradictions in her behavior and statements elicit some questions:
• Why did she rail against being “kicked to the curb” when it was she herself who quit?
• Why, when she quit, did she make no mention of sexism by multiple collective members as a reason, but instead say that it was because “certain people” (which I assure you means me, as you will come to understand below) were “unresponsive” to her?
• What does it say about the personal integrity of a person who would address supposed sexism in an organization by illicitly hijacking a website rather than making any attempt, either in person or in writing, to communicate her concerns directly?
Finally, a post by another feminist blogger, a supporter of Jane, says,
“… At any moment, Karl could’ve called Jane for a cup of tea or coffee and resolved this. He could’ve reached out to Jane and said hey this was a misunderstanding, lets all just figure this out. He could’ve said sorry we didn’t reach back, it seems that you’re unhappy, lets try and talk about this. But he hasn’t… which is why we have been calling her out.”
• Why was it me rather than other members of the collective or the whole collective itself who could have invited her to coffee to clear up a “misunderstanding”?
• If the problem was the “sexism,” then how would my explaining to her that it was all a misunderstanding erase such apparently egregious examples of sexist behavior?
• Why does she write about “Karl & company” or “Karl and others”? Why am I singled out by name?
Her account makes no sense on the face of it. Her statements are incompatible with her charges of sexism. Her omission of mentioning her hijacking our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the fact that she would do that, should raise serious doubts about her integrity and truthfulness.
What does make sense of all these facts is exactly what happened:
I was quite friendly to Jane from the beginning of her coming to Men Support Women, inviting her to several social occasions at my house as well as sharing some meals and other events with her. I admired her incisive intelligence, her breadth of knowledge, and her politics. In addition, I spent much time at our collective meetings listening to her complaints about her many Facebook fights with men. My fellow collective members will agree that I was the person on the collective who was most attentive to her and spent the most time with her.
At first I thought she just needed the affirmation and support that anyone needs when encountering injustice such as what she claimed happened to her on Facebook. But as time progressed, I began to notice that she was interested in very little of the actual Men Support Women business and appeared to merely want an audience to listen to her rant about men on Facebook who had offended her in some way. Then I began to notice that it was she who picked the Facebook fights, and even more upsetting, that she was a person who, when she perceived offense of any kind, however slight, was vicious, vindictive, mean-spirited, and relentless.
I began to see this as a pattern by early September (I had no idea just how right I was), and at that point, although I had every expectation of continuing to work with her on Men Support Women, while not sharing with her at all any of my feelings or concerns about her behavior, I began to want to distance from her socially.
That is why I did not invite her to my birthday party and did not respond when she sent a mass email that she had been laid off. My birthday party was NOT a Men Support Women event, and I assumed that others who felt close to her would be supportive to her regarding her job. (Did I ever think to ask her if she was isolated? No. Did I ever care enough to reach out in spite of my own misgivings, just to do “the non-sexist thing”? No. And there’s no reason I should have. In fact, two other collective members, Andy and Larry, did contact her and offer her their sympathy on losing her job. I knew she had more of a connection to me, but her getting any support from any of us should have sufficed. (Note: She claims they never contacted her!)
I did not think my distancing from her would be a big deal, especially since she had not attended any of the social events at my house, in most cases without even RSVPing, and she had never had any personal conversations with me in which she expressed any interest in me or my life. I was surprised when she missed a couple of MSW meetings without even calling or emailing to let us know whether she would be there. As it turns out, one of those times was due to her having been grossly verbally assaulted by a man on the street, and she didn’t have the sense of safety or the energy to put into a meeting with people she didn’t know well after that happened. That’s her excuse, anyway. But she could have called to let us know, right? This is just one example of how inconsiderate she was. If she can work two jobs and still make our meetings we at least deserve a phone call!
I was shocked to read her resignation letter on our semi-public listserv alluding to “certain persons.” Jane has at no point attempted to contact me in order to ask what was wrong or why I was withdrew from her, nor has she ever communicated any of her concerns to me, the person who has been secretly withdrawing from her not letting her know, even though she probably senses something is up. Am I, as an anti-sexism man, to be expected to reach out to her and tell her I really don’t like her at all? Isn’t it better that I just stay silent, let her wonder if I’m pulling away or not, make her question herself about all this?
The reason I believe she singles me out in her various diatribes is because it was I who distanced from her—I absolutely admit that I did that. She is correct that I reacted to her being laid off with less concern than I ordinarily would have with other people, but this has nothing to do with her being a woman; it has everything to do with her being cruel and spiteful and my wish to not be involved with such a person on a social level.
It is absolutely ridiculous that she has blown my social distancing from her into a grandiose lie about me personally and Men Supporting Women in general. Her trumped up ex post facto charges of sexism are nothing but malicious lies she is attempting to spread on the internet in an attempt to exact revenge for a perceived personal slight.
Bottom line—I don’t like her, I have a right to not like her after coming to know her, my evaluation of her has proved true in her subsequent behavior and treatment of me, and all of this has nothing whatsoever to do with gender. She is one of the meanest people I have ever encountered in my many years doing all kinds of work, and I wish to have nothing more to do with her.
Her statement that what we/I did to one woman, we did to all women, is laughable. She does not represent all women—it is a supreme insult to women to suggest that she does. How I treated her and my opinion of her are solely due to her own particular behavior and personality–her vindictiveness, her maliciousness, her
lack of integrity, and her complete disregard for ethical behavior–and nothing else.
I take no joy in declaring this publicly, but her behavior has forced this admission. I have no shame about my actions—I befriended her, spent time with her, found out who she is, and I refuse to be bullied into involving her in my personal life.
P.S. Men have offered to mediate between Jane and the other feminist blogger with Men Support Women. Those women do not want a man to be the mediator.
October 16, 2009 at 9:05 am |
I have posted this, at Jennifer’s request, on my blog also. While some women are understandably upset that I posted Karla Mantilla’s response on my blog, I actually think it strengthens, rather than raises doubts about Jenn’s allegations of racism. I also think, at the very least, that a radical feminist publication- especially one based in a city like Washington D. C.- should be held accountable with regards to the lack of women of colour on staff. I hope it can be resolved amicably.
October 16, 2009 at 10:19 am |
I actually think it strengthens, rather than raises doubts about Jenn’s allegations of racism.
I totally agree. I think the fact that Karla admits to distancing herself from Jennifer without trying to talk to her about their relationship really shows that something isn’t right.
October 17, 2009 at 9:56 pm |
I’m not convinced that it does strengthen it. The male-female structural power dynamic is a very different one to female-female. It assumes ww have equality of power with wm. Its similar to the argument by trans-activists to display cis-women as equal to cis-men in having equal power to oppress – which is the standard textbook po-mo argument, whether it be racism or gender-queerisms.
women can be bigoted, prejudiced, stupid, ignorant, foolish and clueless on all sorts of issues, including race, but they do not have the power, in a social-political framework, to oppress. The outcome here, in a way, supports that – both sides are deeply hurt – the only power either side has, is the power to hurt the other. The only winner is patriarchy. As for the lack of woc on staff at oob, it may be a number of things – including perhaps that DC bw may prefer not to join.
October 18, 2009 at 4:00 am |
It must be awful and terribly traumatic for all the women who are having to deal with this conflict so publically. For Jennifer, in particular – having to deal with people questioning your sanity and your integrity very publically is really awful. I am interested in what has happened at oob, firstly because I am a fan of the publication and secondly as I am involved in a feminist collective (ROAR) and really hope that no women ever feel marginalised in the collective – though I think probably some women have. I understand that it is very important to be aware of power structures and to put things in place (accountability or something) to ensure that racism and ablism are not being perpetuated. I would be interested to hear some ideas about what other collectives have done??
In this circumstance at oob, I can understand Jennifer’s anger as I would be very upset if someone from ROAR invited everyone from the collective to their party and didn’t invite me because they had decided that I was a nasty, evil person. That sort of thing happens in the work place all the time and is recognised as a form of bullying. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional on Karla’s behalf, as I know that distancing emotionally is something that many women do for all sorts of reasons, and I don’t know the circumstances here – but I can guess that would have resulted in Jennifer feeling like an outsider – especially without any explanation. I understand that not everyone in a collective is going to like each other, but I think it is important to try to work through differences and to try to keep the needs of the collective in focus. I believe that it is also everyone’s responsibility in a feminist collective to ensure that women who are more vulnerable or more marginalised in society do not become marginalised within the collective, rather the opposite – that the most marginalised women’s needs are centred.
One thing that is really disturbing me is the whole personality disorder stuff – I don’t know if those sort of things are being said by the oob collective or not, but certainly they seemed to be banded about by women calling themselves radical feminists. This may be a harsh judgement but I do think that if some of the white feminists that I have seen engaging in such dialogue can say such derogatory things around mental illness (that they clearly know nothing about) then it raises the question around whether they could also easily say racist stuff as well (though as I said I don’t know if they were the women from oob). The term ‘personality disorder’ in itself is such psychologist hate speech crap and has been used to control people (mostly women) who do not fit in or conform to societies norms and values and, more importantly, to cover up the fact that such a lot of women are experiencing trauma or marginalisation. Instead they are told that there is something wrong with their personalities and that they are crazy. That is particulalrly true with Borderline pd – which is a label given to women (almost always women) who have been badly abused and who are responding in a perfectly normal way to surviving every day with accute trauma – yet the psychs say ‘we’ have a faulty personality. I think it is anti-feminist to buy into these labels and rather that we should actively resist them.
I learned a lot from reading Jennifer’s blog and I am also aware that the ROAR collective is made up mostly of white women. Also I think there have been times when women have felt marginalised in the group, e.g. we have had several women involved who don’t speak English as a first language and often the whole collective have been very insensitive to the needs of women – rushing through the agenda and then later I have realised that we have all been speaking way too fast. Most of us have marginalised or bullied someone at some point (I know I have and do) but I just think it’s important for us all to be aware when we have and to own it and I guess that is what needs to happen in this situation for a resolution.
I do hope that the conflict can one day be resolved and learned from for all feminist collectives. I do love the off our backs publications and I am grateful to the contributions of all women involved and hope it continues to be published and that the collective can learn from this and move forward and most importantly, that no women are emotionally harmed from this in the long term.
October 18, 2009 at 7:21 am |
Rain,
I totally agree with everything you have pointed out in your comment. I was talking about Karla Mantilla’s actual response and saying that it confirmed Jennifer’s story for me rather than brought it into question. As far as this piece goes. I do disagree that white women have as much power over Black women as men have over women. I think this would be a stronger piece of writing if it used intra-female examples. Like if Jane was a lesbian woman or a woman with a disability within a collective of straight or able-bodied women. And if this were the case… I do think we would be asking questions.
October 19, 2009 at 3:00 am |
Red, I’ve noticed that you’ve since removed everything you posted… I was wondering what was up with that. You know my email, its posted on the blog, if you don’t want to post it in the comments…
Allecto, Karla’s response confirmed it for me too…