And If This Were a Men’s Group, Speaking About Any Woman, Would it be Seen Differently? A Fantasy Piece, by Richard Walker

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.

White Supremacy, Feminism and Off Our Backs

It has been an eye-opening experience to watch the events unfold when one Black feminist blogger and writer speaks up about racism in the predominantly white radical feminist community. Jennifer writes passionately, eloquently and with great insight on her blog Celie’s Revenge about issues that affect ALL women. Her blog is inspiring and incredibly brave. She is one woman who truly represents the ideals of sisterhood and liberation.

And yet, when she dares to open her mouth to stand opposed to the racism inherent within the treatment she received at the hands of white feminists… all hell breaks loose. What has shocked me about this whole event is the fact that it has exposed that racism is not present within a small pocket of feminists in the Off Our Backs collective… It has spread like wildfire, with more and more white feminists lining up to tell Jennifer that she is a crazy, angry, racist against white people and, worst of all, a bitch!!! All this just because she insisted that she should be treated as human as a white woman.

This is totally unacceptable. No woman who thinks that this is an appropriate way to treat another woman should think that she has the right to call herself a feminist. What has struck me most about this is the fact that the white ‘feminists’ have responded to Jennifer’s truth-telling is exactly the same as the way that men react to women who tell them the truth. With defensiveness, anger, justification, intimidation, name-calling etc, etc. Really, really shocking.

All illusions that women are better at working through issues like racism better than men have been very definitely shattered for me as I watch white ‘feminists’ trying to tear strips off Jennifer. Trying to paint her as mad and delusional. A few clues women. Black women have the right to be angry about racism. Black women have the right to be angry at white women who demonstrate racism, either politically or personally. Black women need to be supported in their truth-telling. Even when that truth hurts us. Even when that truth is directed at us. We have no credibility as feminists if we don’t.

Please take the time to read Jennifer’s story and support the incredibly important work that she is doing for ALL women. There is no sisterhood, no feminism, no herstory without Black women, there is no point in a struggle which excludes the voices and the truths of women of colour. The white women from the Off Our Backs collective have some serious explaining to do.

Some anti-racist and feminist notes on the sixth Harry Potter plus some anti-feminist fangirlish squee!!!!

Race issues:

1) So Harry dates Cho an Asian girl, has a flirtation with a biracial girl in a cafe… and then gets into a relationship with, Ginny, a nice washed out white girl.

2) Ginny dates Dean Thomas, played by a Black? Biracial? boy who makes her cry a lot… then gets into a relationship with a nice, white Harry Potter.

3) All the leads are white. There are very few people of colour with speaking roles in the movie. This has been true of ALL of the Harry Potter movies… but it felt even more marked in this one. The biracial girl in the cafe was not in the books that I remember… maybe the film-makers were trying to write more people of colour into the movie.

Women issues:

1) Remus and Tonks together SUCKS. It is so disgusting to see a gorgeous, vibrant young woman be put into a relationship with a gross, boring old man.

2) Hermione pining after brain-dead Ron???? Yeah right. That wasn’t believeable in the books… it sure as hell isn’t believeable in the movies.

3) Ginny got onto the Quidditch team too, right??? She is supposed to be a really brilliant Seeker and Chaser. Why did we only get shots of Ron heroically getting hit by the Quaffle over and over??? Where were all the shots of Ginny with the Quaffle scoring goals for the team??? Oh, that’s right, women’s acheivements and herorism really isn’t comparable to the wonderfulness of stupid men.

Fangirlish Squee:

1) The movie was beautifull rendered. I loved the cinematography.

2) SO MUCH SLASH!!!!! I nearly wet myself when Ron got into bed with Harry. And all those shots of Harry watching Draco and following him around… Sigh. Ages ago I wrote the most brilliant post Sectumsempra story. It fit in so well with the atmosphere of this movie.

3) Luna Lovegood is awesome. I love her character so much. And Helena Bonham Carter has always made my heart beat faster and since she plays an evil, crazy witch in these movies I am totally smitten!!!

More Exposure For Missing Black Women

Sign the petition. Because Black women matter.

Poetry Slam

I entered a Poetry Slam last night for the first time. It was part of the Winter Magic Festival which is held in Katoomba every year. I performed this one  slightly modified as it had to be squished into 2 minutes. It was very scary. I have sung in public before but somehow it was scarier just talking. But it went ok. I didn’t stuff up too badly. And it was really fun. I think I’ll be doing it again.

Of course I didn’t win, not even close. But I didn’t expect to. I knew I would be performing to a misogynist and racist audience so it didn’t surprise me in the least that the two winners were white and male. And the runner up was… yep, you guessed it, a white, male misogynist.

But there were quite a few women in the audience who approached me afterwards who said that they really liked my work and praised my performance. One women even whispered furtively, “You should have won.” If I had been free to speak, if I had have spoken freely, I would have replied, “Sister, I know the rules of men’s games, you can only win while wearing white skin and having a dick between your legs whilst babbling goobledegook.” I didn’t reach the age of 26 without learning that my skin and my sex were liabilities when playing games in the malestream. My commitment to women’s liberation and women’s centredness is even less acceptable.

Winning and losing are male concepts. The idea the poetry can be well serviced by competition is completely alien to me. Poetry is spiritual, poetry is erotic, poetry is connection. But the reality is that I did win last night. I made connections with other women poets. Real women who wrote with feeling about earth and sky and women’s power. Our voices shone strongly to each other. We connected and we won.

On a personal level, I faced my fear of performance and I proved to myself that it is entirely possible for me to get up on stage and not make a complete fool of myself. I didn’t go completely blank, like I thought I would, I didn’t stumble over ever single line, I didnt trip over when I walked onto the stage. In short, I won. I conquered my own doubts and self-hatred, two of women’s biggest and most fatal stumbling blocks.

I came away from the night with a feeling of elation. The night confirmed for me just how lacking in music and poetry men really are. They have no feeling for the beauty and depth of language, the subtlety of rhythm, the complexity of the personal and political. Dissenter and I couldn’t help but laugh at the clumbsiness of what men call poetry.

The way the competition was judged was the MC (a Black or possibly mixed racial man, the only other person of colour performing) threw five markers out into the audience. Whoever caught the marker became a judge. Fair right? One of the markers went to a highschool girl (pretty cool I thought), another to a woman who was a birdwatching guide, another hit an elderly woman, her husband picked up the marker and when he tried to give her the marker the woman refused to take it, retired gentleman becomes the next judge, the fourth marker was caught by a woman, her friend’s husband quickly snatched the marker from her, so sexist IT dude became a judge and the last was thrown to a male tree lopper. Three men, one woman, one girl.

I have to wonder how different the judging would have been if the women had held tight to those markers. The wrap up of the night was like some sick joke. The two male winners, the male MC and the TWO WOMEN WHO HAD ORGANISED THE WHOLE EVENT stood on stage to be congratulated. So women are the ones that do the hard yards and organise the events, men are the ones that win, introduce and control the proceedings of the event.

Ngh, I need to organise some women only performance nights. Men’s performance bores me to tears. Even though one of the women’s performances was horrible classist, misogynist and possibly racist, she didn’t hold a candle to the misogyny and homophobia of some of the men. And the audience was laughing and enjoying the misogynist and homophobic ‘poetry’.  The most woman-hating poem was voted runner up. Erch.

But I really do have to do it more often. It was great to meet other women performers, women who wrote Mother Earth/Goddess poetry no less. Pretty bloody awesome methinks.

Bill Henson’s ‘art’ is sick

Bill Henson, and most of Australia’s ‘artistic’ community, thinks that it is ‘artistic’ to take naked, sexualised pictures of children. It isn’t. From the Bravehearts petition to the Prime Minister:

We are appalled by the level of support given to Henson in light of the police seizure of his photographs, which has been issued primarily by people defending the rights and freedoms of artists at the expense of the rights and freedoms of children. There is no denying that art has an important role in society. But artists, like every other adult, have a responsibility to protect children from exploitation. The artistic pursuit of personal emotion, curiosity or expression cannot be sanctioned where this pursuit violates existing human rights and betrays the same laws by which the rest of society lives.

The sexualisation of children and young people for the alleged purpose of art – or any other purpose – is counterproductive to the best interests of child protection. It plays directly into the hands of those who want to liberate children and young people from the laws which protect them.

Sign the Petition against Bill Henson’s child pornography.

What I noticed about his photographs is the fact that all of his models are white. They are pimple-free with glossy hair. The female children sometimes wear make-up. The male and female children are photographed together in sexualised senarios. None of the children are fat, none of the children are happy or playing. They are often photographed in a studio with no or few clothes on, few props and dark lighting. The female children have long hair, the male children have short hair.

An example of Henson’s ‘art’:

White Women and Self-Obsession

I am really saddened by the recent events that have happened on the feminist blogosphere, between radical feminists (so-called), whom I mistakenly trusted to do better by their sisters. I am writing this post to address a particular issue that I am having with the white feminist bloggers that have proposed self-flagellation as their method of combating racism. I want to let everyone know that I no longer feel safe in the community of white women who have decided to jump on board the self-flagellation boat. I don’t feel safe when multiracial/biracial women are not allowed to have perspectives on race. I don’t feel safe when the mothers of biracial/multiracial children are not allowed to have perspectives on race. Right now, in the climate of the white feminist blogosphere, I do not feel safe.

And I don’t know what to do about it. I want to tell my white sisters where they can stick their self-flagellation antics. I want to let them know that I no longer feel safe to express myself on their blogs. I want to ask them, while they are doing their clueless white guilt dances, how they could dare do them on the backs of multiracial/biracial women. How they could dare do them on the backs of mothers of multiracial/biracial children. Because it shocks me silly to see these women who should bloody well know better all race to stomp other women into the mud to get points for working on their white privilege.

Not okay.

We are women. We have suffered. We have had our trust betrayed and our loyalties questioned. We suffer from guilt of things we have done, the guilt of things we haven’t done and are blamed for Every. Single. Bad. Thing on the planet. ‘Working’ on white-privilege by promoting guilt, self-flagellation, self-obsession, misdirection (blaming other white women) etc is doing shit all for the rights of people of colour.

I wrote a poem a while ago called Raped Down to Almost White and this quote seems appropriate: my grandmother has the darkest skin but this does not drive a wedge between us./I will say this bond is more than blood and more than skin and you diminish me by trying to deny it.

I don’t know how else to conclude except to say that when you deny Heart’s reality: her sacred bond with her children, you diminish her. You diminish me by making grand statements about people with white skin privilege, assuming that all of us are similarly situated to yourselves. My sacred bond with my grandmother is more than blood and more than skin and I feel as though you are trying to diminish me. Would you deny this as well?

I don’t know. I’m too afraid to ask.

I’m not all that interested in a sisterhood that carries on like this. I’m not interested in a sisterhood which involves itself in denying the lived realities of other women. If you come here onto my blog, please leave your guilt, self-obsession and woman-blaming at the door and let us get on with the revolution.