The reason I was attacked was because someone (a tweeter I have never heard of) tweeted a trans*woman I follow to tell her I was transphobic because I link to the blogs of Cathy Brennan and Ann Tagonist on my page "My Favourite Blogs". I have never had a disclaimer at the top of the page.* This is a small blog. I only get about 1000 hits a day and it never occurred to me that someone who hadn't read my blog would be interested in a list of blogs I find thought-provoking. After all, I list all the books I read and no one ever checks that page despite my tweeting it! If they had read my blog, they would have seen rather a lot of posts on the issue of cultural femicide and the erasure of women's voices from our culture. This is something I am passionate about. For me, feminism isn't about only hanging out with women who agree with me on every single issue. Feminism is fundamentally about the liberation of women from male violence. This requires us to listen to the voices of all women.
The reason I left twitter on Friday [for the shortest break ever :) ] was because the method these so-called feminists used to attack me was to go to after the organisation The Women's Room UK; an organisation that I am only involved in as a guest tweeter, along with an ever-increasing number of women. I was heart-broken to think that I had somehow damaged TWR. I think TWR is an amazing piece of feminist activism: reclaiming *all* women's voices, and that includes trans* women. TWR has had a clear policy of trans* inclusion since its inception. It's one of the reasons I support TWR: they do not take a political stance above the very obvious feminist political stance of demanding women's voices be heard in the mainstream media. The inclusion of *all* women's voices will, inevitably, mean that the many of the women on the database will fundamentally disagree with one another on a number of issues. (And, I am looking forward to the day when Radio 4's Women's Hour is composed entirely on women registered on TWR with nary a man to be heard from).
I do not know what event Marstrina was referring to when she wrote this storify but I agree with it completely. We have got to stop attacking other women online. We can only learn from one another if *all* our voices are heard, even if we disagree with one another about some issues. We can not liberate all women from the male violence perpetrated and perpetuated in the Capitalist-Patriarchy unless all women have a voice.
Silencing other women because you disagree with them is not feminism.
Belittling, humiliating or causing a twitter mob to attack women is not feminism.
Feminism is about liberating women from the Patriarchy. To do that, we *all* need to be heard.
I will not allow my voice to be silenced by one woman with a vendetta against me who used the very real fears of others to cause havoc online. We are fighting for our lives.
We need to destroy the patriarchy.
And, we need to do it now.
*I have now placed a disclaimer at the top of the page.
And, we need to do it now.
*I have now placed a disclaimer at the top of the page.
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