Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude's Rebecca followed up the post we are also highlighting with the one below. We thought they were important enough to do a Double Dog Blog Spotlight.
Here, Rebecca's addressing the need to speak truths. And the need to do your part to say what you believe in because when you do that, you'll find your not just one small voice. Others will join you.
Rebecca offered comments on this post but we pulled them because we thought they worked better as an interview. They are published this edition and you can find them. We'll let the post speak for itself.
on ed and the need for us to tell our truths and beliefs
first off, for yesterday's post, i want to thank elaine, c.i. and kat. they listened to parts of it (c.i. heard it all in parts prior to it being posted).
ed really pissed me off. i asked kat if i let my voice suffer as a result because that's a concern she has in her writing. she said 'it's you' and that she liked the fact that i didn't try to engage him on policy issues that he never raised.
i also want to say thank you to the 19 female bloggers who wrote to say basically 'keep giving them hell.'
i don't think the general blog visitor or blogger realizes what a problem this is.
for me, i won't back down. but i've noted before that female bloggers have stopped discussing politics at their site because of this type of 'help.' then they get slammed as gilmor girls bloggers or cat bloggers.
but when they try to do politics, a man comes along to scream and rage.
i'm sick of it.
i'm sick of men trying to tell women what to do.
it's the fucking 21st century but some men seem to think the clock stopped at the turn of the 19th century.
to those men i say 'kiss my ass.'
you hear me?
kiss my ass.
1 of the 19 had never written before. she tried to accomodate the man who kept e-mailing. tried to meet him half way in her posts.
her posts. not his. if he doesn't like it, let him do his own damn blog.
but even trying to meet the prick 1/2 way wasn't enough - it never is.
he continued to hector her and bully her and it just gets to be too much.
do men on the left do this? i hope not.
i can say that males on the right who've e-mailed have generally disagreed with me and offered their opinions. they haven't told me 'you will write this way' or 'you will write about this!'
men on the left don't harrass me with unasked for help. now maybe they do that with right wing female bloggers, i don't know. i would guess not.
but these damn middle of the road centers seem to think they boss women around.
they're so used to following the 'rules' and coloring inside the line that it apparently infuriates them when any woman doesn't do the same. probably infuriates them when a man doesn't do the same. but a left blogger who'd written on ed, e-mailed me to say that ed never even wrote him.
wonder why that is?
maybe because some guys get off on bullying women?
i won't take this shit.
i won't do it because i don't believe in taking it.
but i also won't do it because i know, as 2 female bloggers pointed out, when i stand up it makes it easier for others to.
i'm not as smart as any of my personal heroes, i don't pretend to be.
but they blazed paths for me and and lot of others.
if the only strip i add to clearing the path is refusing to bow and wimper, then that's what i have to offer.
maybe in 10 years, other women won't have to deal with this bullshit.
that's what it is, it's bullshit.
it's a man at a party interrupting you in the middle of a joke because if 'the little lady' tells the joke, people won't get it.
it's the man who covers his crotch at the thought that a woman might speak her mind.
i won't take the shit.
i've read some of the e-mail at the third estate sunday review. usually the funny 1s because those are pulled for their 'dear third estate sunday review' pieces. but jim has also passed on the shit that ava and c.i. get. for tv reviews!
for tv reviews, people feel they can threaten them in the most graphic details.
kat gets that shit too. do any men?at third estate sunday review, jim, jess and ty have never been called to the carpet for any opinion they've expressed. but ask dona and she'll tell you about the 'helpful' men who write in to suggest that she should have said what she said in the roundtable or about a book 'this way' or 'that way.'
get it through your middle of the road fucking heads, no 1's your vivian. you're not edward.
this isn't pretty woman, this isn't even my fair lady.
your efforts to rescue us from ourselves is neither requested nor welcomed.
put it back in your pants, boys, we don't want to see it, we don't want to smell it.
maybe this is how you engage with men in locker rooms (or maybe how, in high school as towel boy or equipment manager, you saw other men engage) but that's your way.
quit pushing it off on us.
we're sick of it.
you want to bully and boss.
probably you want to do that in your personal life as well but times have changed if your mind set hasn't. so you don't get to do that in your personal life.
all you get to do is sit around watching the movies by the male joan crawford, michael douglas.
you sit there watching falling down or fatal attraction or any other film where, like michael, you're the great victim.
get over yourselves.
i got 46 e-mails from young women in high school who spoke of things like being interrupted in the middle of class by some boy who felt the need to stop them, say 'i think what she means is' and go on to hijack the conversation.
i did something in college when that happened to me and i'd like to share it with you.
don't say a word. fall silent for a moment.
stare at the idiot, then at the teacher. then look around the room.
then very loudly say, 'excuse me, is my answering the question interrupting you?'
watch the little punk ass bully go red in the face and fall silent.
to wendy, i want to state what i've said before, not all men are like this. we have progressed. but there's still work to be done.
wendy, you asked me what you could do so i'll tell you to hold those little tyrants accountable.
let every 1 in the class see you do that. you'll find that some of the guys will tell the tyrant to shut up. you'll find that some of the gals will do the same. (some gals are the worst, they grow up to be right wingers and often make a living slamming women who work for a living - which, they in fact do while they slam those women. think of ann coulter.)
wendy, i won't kid you, it's not always fun. it can make you really mad.
but you're serious about wanting to do something to straighten out your own high school class and i think that's what you can do.
if it doesn't sound right to you, blow it off and ask around for other ideas. but if it feels right, go for it.
and to adult women, i want to point out that our mothers blazed a trail for us. they were the 1st group to have careers and not hobbies. they got slammed over and over. 'they want it all!' 'they've turned the children over to daycare centers!' 'they've lost their femininity!'
they had to deal with a lot of shit.as hard as it can seem sometime, it is easier for us. we have role models we can look to within our own circles - our mothers, or aunts, or a neighbor. our mothers flew blind. they rejected the straight jacket of the stereotype at a time when the alternative was to create their own identities from scratch.
we need to build on what they created.
so if you're squeamish about the word 'feminist' (as 1 reader wrote last week), get over it. it's so much easier to use the term today then it was for our mothers.
in d.c. now it's not just the bully boy that wants to strip us of our rights, it's also a lot of 'center' democrats who think they can distance themselves from our rights and look 'manly.'
we need to be vocal. we need to say, 'speak to me or lose my vote.'
when 2008 rolls around, they better have a democrat on the ticket who can talk about abortion.
not in terms of 'it's awful but ...' we need a woman or a man who will say 'privacy right' over and over.
for my male readers, i say use the term feminist.
it's not just for women. it's about equality. you hear some female in your class being trashed for being a feminist, say 'hey i'm a feminist too.'
let's work to support each other here.
male or female, you want to save reproductive rights? start using the term feminist to self-describe.
it'll let a lot of people know that contrary to the way the media plays things in their current infatuation with all things right-wing-religious that we're still here. we may not be on tv or quoted in print, but we're here.
look around you and i think you'll see a lot of wishy-washy people (sheep) who will sell out anything if they feel it's the new phase. those people need to realize feminists are all around them.
this is your world. you can speak out and make things better or you can go along and let the loud mouths from the center and the right drown us out. so think about that and i'll also note a story from democracy now that you need to watch, listen or read. it's called 'EXCLUSIVE: Another U.S. War Resister Flees to Canada To Avoid Fighting in Iraq Via The New 'Underground Railroad.''
it's an important story and you need to know about it. but in terms of what we've been talking about for the last few paragraphs, i'll note this and you can relate it to our topic:
AMY GOODMAN: Let me end with Ryan Johnson. What significance do the people who have come before you who have gone to Canada, like Jeremy Hinzman, like Brandon Huey and the people who have resisted in the United States, like Camilo Mejia, like Pablo Paredes, Aidan Delgado, what impact do they have on you?
RYAN JOHNSON: Well, because of them, I found out about the movement. I found -- we found Jeremy Hinzman's site before I went AWOL. And one of our first thoughts was to go to Canada, and we found the G.I. Rights hotline, and we were looking at that. Then we found stuff on Camilo Mejia, Aidan Delgado, and, you know, it kind of inspired me that people were doing this. It let me know that there were other people like me that weren’t wanting to go to the war and that there’s people just trying to get it out there to, you know, soldiers and civilians alike, letting them know that they're not the only ones that don't believe in it.do you get it?
ryan johnson was able to do what he did because of those who came before. that's why it's important to get our voices in the media. thank god for democracy now which has a huge audience. but don't think that because it made democracy now it will make the networks.
it won't. we need to be our own media. we need to make sure that people in our circles know what we believe in and what we stand for.
not every 1 will agree with you. some won't agree with you at the start and some will never agree. but there are some people who will disagree at the start just because you're giving them information they haven't heard before. once they get over their shock and have a bit to think about it, i think you'll be surprised by how many will come back and say, 'okay, now i get it.'