about who we are, how we got here and how we can move forward together.

it's a constant gut check one has to give themselves.

Putting oneself in someone elses shoes. Realizing all women fight the same root problems.

Constantly trying to find ways to verbalize the most difficult concepts, to make them understandable.

When I speak with feminists, it's a hard days work, but a good one.

Audre Lorde suggests that it is our responsibility as feminists to come to see these connections. Only in this way can we come to understand that the true liberation of one oppressed group cannot happen without the liberation of all oppressed people.
Here is how Audre Lorde puts it:

I am a
lesbian woman of Color whose children eat regularly because I work in
a university. If their full belies make me fail to recognize my
commonality with a woman of Color whose children do not eat because
she cannot find work, or who has no children because her insides are
rotted from home abortions and sterilization; if I fail to recognize
the lesbian who chooses not to have children, the woman who remains
closeted because her homophobic community is her only life support,
the woman who chooses silence instead of another death, the woman who
is terrified lest my anger trigger the explosion of hers; if I fail
to recognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contributing not
only to each of their oppressions but also to my own, and the anger
which stands between us then must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment,
not for evasion by guilt or further separation. I am not free
while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different
from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color
remains chained. Nor is any one of you (Audre Lorde, [1980] 1984.
Pp132-133).

It's difficult to find any one thing to quote.

There really is one paragraph that strikes a huge chord with me and it's one you posted above: 'If feminism is to be a truly liberatory politics seeking the freedom of all oppressed people, it has to recognize this important insight: that “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own” – that I am not free as long as any oppressed person remains chained.'

how it is FEMINISM that is supposed to be this "truly liberatory politics seeking the freedom of all oppressed people".

I'm waiting for all the other supposedly progressive -ologies to take on equal responsibility for liberating women, and make equal acknowledgements of how their past and also present politics fail to do that ...

Women have battled the black power movement in the US, trade unions, the left generally ... over and over and over again throughout decades of history, seeking to have women's own disadvantages and interests recognized and addressed, both in the group's efforts and within the groups themselves. Women themselves took the lead in the struggle for other people's equality: the anti-slavery movement, efforts on behalf of children (child labour, child sexual exploitation ...). And always it was the back of the bus for women, if not thrown under it.

When women stood up and started fighting for OURSELVES for a change, we were the bad guys for not including every single other form of oppression in our battle.

How come?

I'm a working-class kid. Frankly, my class has hindered my success in life, and affected my self-image, considerably more than my sex. But my sex is why I was a victim of sexual violence. Women in the 1% are victims of sexual violence too.

Why is it that when women stood up and fought for themselves, against the disadvantages and oppression that all women share, after all the history of putting themselves second and being put second (if that) by every other disadvantaged group, women, feminists, need to be maligned for not organizing the great big fight against everything wrong with society everywhere?

Forgive me if I just get a taste of the same old same old when I hear that song.

bell hooks and Adrienne Rich. It was a gut check for me. It's easy to try to universalize your experiences onto everyone else's, you think you understand and that you're a good ally. But you can't. It's a constant process of peeling away your preconceived notions and listening.

We're discussing these things in the context of gender and intersection. Do you have some ideas about the topic?

Groups have very particular rules. I host Socialist Progressives and would take measures if anyone violated the SOP in there. I don't host in here, but this space has hosts.

than posting. I have much to learn, but little to add to discussions here. Just saying...

If you can't do that, then don't post. Saying that speaking your mind would go against that is needlessly provocative--it's a cheap way to argue against the SOP without explicitly doing so.

Please, either find it within yourself to observe the SOP without whining about it or don't post here. This is a protected, safe haven group and we don't need people being disruptive.

why this crap is allowed in this forum, I do not know.

But I don't need no Mr. Trickster educating me about feminism.

I wanted Mr.Twister but it had already been taken.

i dont know. i was all for blocking him.

He deleted his posts now, so I guess it's moot.

but still would like to know the thinking. When we are trying to have discussions about a certain topic, posters that don't think a problem exists, are not usually helpful.

And in this forum, I really don't want to waste my time trying to explain. If they really want to learn, they can read the thread.

member of this forum? a long time member of the forum

he was basically denying that sexism and bigotry against women exist.

No helping that one....

I thought this group was to discuss feminism. Not fight with people who don't believe feminists and feminism should even exist.

I think that posters should have the chance to leave on their own. It creates less animosity that way.

Looking back, I think we should have put an end to it sooner.

loud.

ya, it would be nice for people to take a polite suggestion. but our JOB is to stop it if they do not take our suggestion.

yeah, not so sure about that. FWIW I'm bi-racial, grew up poor but I think I'm finally now able to qualify as 'lower middle class', and obviously a woman.

I understand the kyriarchy and think it's an important subject, but I have a problem with attempting to tackle all the issues of privilege everywhere while operating from under the banner of feminism. It seems to make more sense to me to have feminism be one part of that larger movement.