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XenaAmazon

(37 posts)
Wed Dec 16, 2015, 08:38 AM Dec 2015

Can someone please explain Karen Straughan?

After receiving numerous recommendations to view Karen Straughan's videos on YouTube, I sat down to watch one, not entirely sure what i would see. She refers to herself as Girl Writes What. The effort to infantilize herself immediately rubbed me the wrong way since she's obviously no 12-year-old.

From her outward appearance, I wondered if she might be a lesbian separatist: she is quite articulate & well versed in feminist jargon, she has short hair and wears no make-up.

(Fine print: I'm a short-haired, cosmetically-challenged lesbian, nowhere near as well versed in feminist lingo as Straughan.) I'm no separatist, but I came out in the late 70's when minimalism was in vogue. I later discovered that Straughan's appearance was to appease men who accused her of using her "feminine wiles" to divide and conquer!

As I strained to listen, I understood how far out in the ozone Straughan lives. Unfortunately, I'd picked a video in where she accuses feminists who claim to receive threats of sexual violence or death of making it up to make MRA's look bad. (Considering I've also gotten rape/death threats for having the audacity of advocating for Planned Parenthood, I concluded that she's reality-averse.)

She also has a retro attitude (I'm trying to be nice) toward sexual assault, quite odd considering she reportedly has a daughter.

Can anyone explain her schtick? I've researched her, but most of what i could find was written by MRA apologists. Why an obviously bright and articulate young woman would take such a position is puzzling. Her charge that that feminists are out to oppress menis akin to saying that African Americans who opposed slavery were out to persecute slave owners. At least it dovetails nicely with the conservative Christian claim that people they've historically discriminated against are actually persecuting them by fighting for their rights. There is a lot of victim-blaming going around these days.

My only theory is this: if she were a feminist, Straughan would be one of hundreds of thousands. And among those hundreds of thousands, there are some brilliant minds, against which Straughan could never compete.

HOWEVER, being a gender-traitor makes her unique. She therefore gets affirmation, recognition and exposure she'd never receive as a feminist. (Ditto for Ann Coulter, by the way).

In light of the increasingly nasty political rhetoric and the unwillingness of right-wing leaders to police their own misogynist spokespeople, I'm making an effort to try to understand the women who work against their own best interests.

Thanks in advance to anyone who is patient enough to read this. Even more for those who reply.

7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Can someone please explain Karen Straughan? (Original Post) XenaAmazon Dec 2015 OP
sorry for being dense, what are MRAs? peacebird Dec 2015 #1
Mens mercuryblues Dec 2015 #2
Thank you! peacebird Dec 2015 #3
MRA's defined... XenaAmazon Dec 2015 #6
I've never heard of her. Starry Messenger Dec 2015 #4
Karen Straughan XenaAmazon Dec 2015 #5
Thank you very much XenaAmazon suetiggers Aug 2019 #7

mercuryblues

(15,099 posts)
2. Mens
Wed Dec 16, 2015, 09:12 AM
Dec 2015

rights advocates. From what I have read they don't really fight for men's rights, just blame women for their problems and call them liars.

XenaAmazon

(37 posts)
6. MRA's defined...
Sat Dec 19, 2015, 03:46 PM
Dec 2015

Men's Rights Activists. They push the idea that feminists are oppressing men and the cause of "misandry".

Circuitous thinking, not unlike the Evangelicals who equate that any action to stop them from bullying groups they don't like (LGBT's, single moms, women seeking abortions) as persecuting them.

In other words, they mistake self-pity for persecution.

XenaAmazon

(37 posts)
5. Karen Straughan
Sat Dec 19, 2015, 03:39 PM
Dec 2015

If you google her on Youtube, you will come up with a whole lot of her videos.

This is where her videos are:
https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

Her tagline is: This is what anti-feminism looks like.


She founded the men's rights advocacy group called A VOICE FOR MEN. It's pretty disgusting stuff, from victim-blaming rape survivors to legitimizing internet-based misogyny . It's important to know who she is bc she is given a lot of opportunity to debate noted feminists.

suetiggers

(2 posts)
7. Thank you very much XenaAmazon
Sun Aug 25, 2019, 03:51 PM
Aug 2019

Xena, thanks so much for this response to Straughan.
I recently was reading posts on a TedX talk by a woman who clearly doesn't get feminism.

This TedX speaker was feeding the feminist haters club and Karen Straughan's name was brought up several times in the follow-up replies. I'd never heard of her and listened to a video of her....arghhhhh ..it was so frustrating/maddening and this really made me appreciate finding XenaAmazon.
Thank you much Xena...keep it comin'. You so get it and it worries me how popular the feminist-haters groups have become. I recently read a wonderful article in WMC WOMEN UNDER SEIGE
online and wanted to share it. I can't get enough of these smart writings.
I'm living in Florida and find it very stressful after living most of my 79 years in Baltimore, a diverse city I love.
Hope you find this as interesting as I did if you haven't already read it.
Also, I've been involved with a pretty decent group called Humanists of the Treasure Coast and gave a talk on a new terrific book by Jack Holland, an Irish writer called " A Brief History of Misogyny, The World's Oldest Prejudice" and I highly recommend it to women and men. patricia winchild

articlehttp://www.womensmediacenter.com/women-under-siege/understanding-the-rage-of-white-male-supremacy-an-interview-with-lisa-wade-phd
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