Wow. I just spent some time reading through Z. Budapests' facebook wall and now I feel like I need a shower. It's people like her who give Dianics and feminists a bad name, so focused on exclusively the woman/female she's become unbalanced and can't even see it. The 'born women only' thing at Panthea-Con is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her disgust and mistrust of transexual individuals, and her apparent complete dismissal of anything man/male in her practises disturbs me. What about BALANCE? What about EQUALITY?
The private convo began with her comment, then went on for nearly an hour and a half via FB's chat feature. Good stuff.
Rowan: I think she signifies the 'battle mentality' of certain types of feminist, who can never fully trust men as allies. For her whole life, she has considered the masculine an enemy that wants to destroy her, that she has to maintain constant vigilance against.
Like many people with old battle wounds and long wartime experience, she has become unable to see that alliances are valuable and necessary.
She often reminds me of some older, badly damaged veterans, who came home from WWII unable to see Japanese people as anything other than the enemy or came home from Vietnam seeing 'Charlie' in every Asian face.
- Me: I really appreciate the comment you just left on my most recent post, as it was something I was hoping to talk to you about. I see you as a teacher/mentor (I hope that's alright) and wanted to ask you something.
- Rowan: Oh dear!
- *grin*
- sure, what can I do?
- Me: Ok, just before Ryan went to work we were talking about the thing I posted, and I was saying that someone had written Z B saying "I respect your right to self segregate" in regards to her wanting to keep her chant "We all come from the Goddess" female/woman only without changes. Ryan bristled, saying now wait a minute, if men can't have guys only clubs and such (and he was also referring to Z's blunder at Panthea-Con over born-women only at her ritual), then people like Z can't have women only anything. We *don't* have the right, as a group, to self-segregate.
- Me: On one hand I completely agree. My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit. On the other hand, I respect the needs and/or desires of an oppressed group to have their own space and only open it to others when they're ready.
- I think what I'm running into here is the difference between a priviledged group (ie men, cis women) saying "ME ONLY CLUB!" and an oppressed group going "Hey, we're not ready for that." What do you think?
- I'm sorry, I know that's a lot.
- Rowan
- I think I kind of agree with Ryan.
- But not wholly.
- Me:
- *nod* Same.
- Rowan
- I don't know that self-segregation is *right*.
- I respect Z's desire to self-segregate, but I recognise it as an eminently destructive desire.
- It is harmful to community of all sorts to close doors based on arbitrary delineation.
- And at some place like Pantheacon, where a core ethic of non-discrimination is practiced *as an intentional community* then it's doubly problematic.
- sorry, I should have said I don't know that self-segregation is A right, not that I don't know if it IS right.
- Me
- Yes, for sure. As individuals, if we feel the need to say "I am not a part of X community and I don't want to welcome that community into my space" you can sure go ahead and do that, but that kind of exclusion isn't good. A whole tradition shouldn't be working that way.
- As an individual I have a duty to protect myself from places/people (individuals) who I think may bring me harm, but at the same time, I have a duty to examine where that thought process is coming from and see if it's based in anything rational.
- Rowan
- and in places where we've created intentional community, it should be against the rules of that intentional community, because BY CREATING IT we have said that we are establishing a place we want to keep separate from the established bigotries and oppressions of the outside world.
- Me
- Yes!
- Exactly.
- Rowan
- However, in the larger community I can accept that there are times when universal membership is not reasonable or OK.
- This means that I actually support men-only clubs and women-only clubs, with the condition that if membership in those clubs begins to provide an advantage un-associated with gender, they be opened.
- For example, if you want to have a Diogenes Club for only men of a certain age, that's fine by me, even if you want to limit it based on race or religion.
- However, once business begins being conducted by the members, once membership confers a preferential advantage in professional or educational frameworks, I have a problem with it as a function of established bigotry and oppression.
- Me
- *nod*
- I think I'm following.
- Rowan
- that was, in large part, the problem with "Gentlemen's Clubs" not allowing in the ladies, that there were professional decisions being made between members of the club, that by nature excluded women and minorities from opportunity.
- the only way to counteract that practice is a massive and inefficient system of affirmative action, which is a cumbersome blunt object intended to level the playing field, that mostly just incurs different levels of resentment and perpetuates discriminatory attitudes by giving people reason to say "Well, of course (group) is inferior. They can't even compete without affirmative action."
- Me
- Yeah. That's why those clubs, or whites-only clubs, were so wrong. It wasn't inclusive in the "Hey, we need guy/white space" because hey, everywhere is a guy white space! It was "Keep the rifraff out" thinking.
- Rowan
- and it was very much a "Let's keep our advantages between us" system.
- Me
- Yes.
- Supporting and propping up and perpetuating privilege.
- Which is I think what Z is trying to do, keep cis-women up and transpeople down.
- She and her allies have fought so hard and so long for what they've achieved I can see why she doesn't want to share, but damn woman, evolve! lol
- Rowan
- And what Z is doing bothers me because it requires, by its existence, that she create a false 'ideal' of womanhood, that she be able to define which women are 'in the club' and which are not, and that she deny connection to the Goddess to anyone who doesn't meet her criteria.
- Me
- She's so focused on fighting The Man/Patriarchy, I don't think she's aware of kyriarchy. Yeah!
- Well said!
- Rowan
- it's not just the cis-trans problem. It's that she wants Dianics to have the right to say who the 'good' women are, the women who deserve to be included.
- I'm not going to bring this up unless someone makes me, but her attitude towards men and the transgendered is not much different from the 'one drop makes you a Negro' attitudes prevalent in the American South for so long.
- Me
- Good comparison.
- Rowan
- One drop of testosterone, and you're no longer pure. No longer woman, and if only woman can understand the Goddess properly, she can continue to exclude more and more 'tainted' women until she fully controls access to the resources she offers.
- Me
- I was side-ways interested in Dianic Wicca for a while when I first got started, but that's because I thought it was literally about worshipping Diana. lol I know better now and I wouldn't touch Z's brand of Dianic with a 10 foot pole (too phallic? ;) )
- Rowan
- (only too phallic for her...)
- Yeah, the Dianics have always sat wrong with me the same way certain factions of the OTO and some Gardnerians have.
- Me
- And what would we do, as a Pagan community, such as it is, if there was a male leader/elder who said "Well only MEN can understand the God and we don't want any women at our rituals"? We'd be up in freakin' arms! Not literally, but you know what I mean.
- Rowan
- Because it's the same way many Christians sit wrong with me.
- Me
- Yeah. Exclusion based on shit you can't control, like gender, race, etc, isn't ok. Period.
- Rowan
- It is the assertion that "I know the way to understand the gods, the ONLY way, the RIGHT way, and I keep my secrets for those who are worthy of them, because only we shall find Heaven/happiness/power/enlightenment."
- Me
- *nodnod*
- Rowan
- hell, honey, some of us might be up in arms.
- You haven't met Texan pagans.
- I guess one of the big reasons I agree with him is that it's time.
- Me
- It's one thing for an oppressed group to say "Let's get together and build something." but another for a privileged group to do it. But at the same time, there are intersections of privilege.
- It IS time. Enough already with exclusion.
- Rowan
- It's time for us to say, "Hey, you know, we're strong enough to stand the everyday wind without needing the protection of segregation. We are ready to stand, as equals, to the same demands we made of others."
- Me
- YA!
- Rowan
- In recovering from my abusive marriage, there came a moment when I had the choice, to keep asking that people treat me specially and respect my powerlessness, or step out and risk getting beaten down.
- the path to personal power was to stand up for the beatdown, and make up my mind to fight back if I was challenged.
- I could have kept on being protected by my status, but it would have required a personal embrace of victimhood.
- We can keep on segregating ourselves, but it will require an embrace of the notion we can't stand on our own, equal in company.
- Me
- On an individual level I grok that. What about on a community level? First Nations people, for example? They're still getting a constant beat-down.
- That's kinda off topic though.
- Rowan
- Not entirely.
- Me
- I think maybe the group gets to decide for tiself when it feels ready to stand up and say "We're strong enough now.|
- Rowan
- It does bring up a question. If they're still being beaten down, how is the segregation protecting them?
- Me
- I think 3rd wave feminism is doing that, by moving from a focus on *just* women's rights to intersectionality with all oppressed groups.
- Good question!
- It doesn't.
Rowan
- I also don't think that only members of the oppressed group can challenge the segregation.
- Me
- In some small ways there are advantages to segregation, like maintenance of culture and language, but at the same time, if you're isolated, literally, up north, you're easy to ignore, like in Attawapiskat.
- Or hell, any reserve. They're like their own little worlds.
- Rowan
- I think men have a right to say to Z Budapest and those like, her, "I am your ally. I have been your ally. But you still treat me like an enemy, and I'd like you to stop that."
- You're also easy to Other, if you're a closed enclave.
- They shouldn't go so far as to demand inclusion, but they have every right to *ask* that it be considered.
- Me
- Yes. On all counts.
So I don't have a lot of time to read stuff you post, and I wish I did.
ReplyDelete<3<3<3 Love this.