burn the bra. Bella Abzug and Gloria. Great days.

I participated in one in Norman Oklahoma. Interestingly, right in the middle of Oklahoma was a very active women's movement.

I often compare Occupy to bra-burning. Many movements start with what other perceive as silliness or attention seeking.
If the movement is to be successful, you have to move on to a "higher" type expression.
It was pretty silly, but it sure got people to listen.

I was much younger (11 or 12) & I couldn't wait to get my first bra so I thought she was nuts. ~lol

Later, after wearing a bar for many years, & when those underwire things became popular(ugh!), I could see why burning a bra could be viewed as liberating.

You are right that first you have to get their attention.

who called the incident where the well-known picture was taken a 'bra burning', when they were actually just symbolically throwing all kinds of stuff into a trash can.

Kinda like how people were doing that planking thing for youtube for a while.

but yes, I remember seeing footage of symbolic bra-burning.

Things were horrible, but somehow exhilarating.

I was a kid during the 1960s and seeing how protests influenced government and social attitudes is a lesson I've never forgotten.

of business after a few demonstrations..

by 'the movement was hijacked by the "my sole purpose in life is to hate men" people.' Do you feel that way about us?

To be honest, what I want most from this group is for it to be a safe place, where we can rest, commiserate, and not have to continually defend ourselves against comments like yours above. This is why I like the SoP and hope visitors will try to adhere to it.

?

but when I went off to college in the mid-70s, that was very much the mantra. If you are sleeping with men, you are our enemy.

At the time I wasn't sleeping with anyone - but that attitude kept me completely away from feminism (and was partly responsible for delaying my own self-realization about my own sexuality) for years. No way I wanted to have anything to do with people who would shut out half the world's population (and anyone sleeping with them) as enemies.

Michigan Women's Music Festival, at least in the early years, was very much the same - keeping trans women out with womyn-born-womyn gate requirements. My spouse and I got together there 30 years ago - and were saddened that the politics (including trans intolerance) made it a place we couldn't really celebrate after a few years.

At least the tolls who have been PPRd had some of that same flavor here recently (you may note a similarity between w-b-w and FAAB). I suspect that is where the comment is coming from.

By the mid-70s, I'd been a feminist for nigh on a decade, and slept with more men than I was later able to accurately count.

I went astray somewhere, and I just haven't been able to identify the exact location ...

Maybe I just didn't have such a selective approach to things / don't have such a selective memory. But then my memory does seem to be failing me.

but there was a significant (and vocal) subgroup which was pretty insistent about complete separation from men. Never made sense to me, so I put my energies elsewhere for a few more years.

Here is almost word for word what I remember from my freshman year in college in 1974:

"In addition to advocating withdrawal from working, personal or casual relationships with men, The Furies recommended that Lesbian Separatists relate "only (with) women who cut their ties to male privilege" and suggest that "as long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will at some point have to betray their sisters, especially Lesbian sisters who do not receive those benefits.""

(Footnotes removed) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatist_feminism

fun of a time

i am thinking not. but then, like i said, it was all teens.

I've never met anyone like that, nor heard anyone advocate that kind of thing.

Maybe it was just a New York thing but I remember it. It didn't last long and then was repeated over and over again against the community. There were all kinds of weird little radical subgroups back then who all tried to out purity test each other....

Andrea Dworkin was big back then and held some degree of influence on the politics

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/

The trans community was just beginning then...It was really not understood as a medical issue and was just in the newborn stages of being researched medically. Gender reassignment was highly controversial and there was lots of confusion about the difference between Gay and Transsexual and Transvestite. These were all new things coming to light for the world to look at.

Last edited Tue Feb 14, 2012, 11:27 PM - Edit history (1)

the women I ran into were dedicated feminists who were serious but, IMHO, misguided. On the other hand, they were some of real workhorses of the movement in that era.

If you're interested, start here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatist_feminism (particularly the lesbian separatist section). It isn't a bad summary, and it provides references to some of the literature of the time.

ETA: One more reference - Lavender Culture, edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young (1978), the essay "Learning from Lesbian Separatism." by Charlotte Bunche. In it, she describes the period of separatism as mostly over - in my experience, it wasn't yet for another 5-10 years.

See also (for a historical perspective on FAAB, and similar concepts): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Womyn%27s_Music_Festival - ""Womyn Born Womyn" policy and debate over trans inclusion.

I am not endorsing either the historical, or the current (at MWMF) policy regarding separatism or exclusion of trans women - BUT I do think it is important to know our history - and some of it will seem very familiar to those reading through the posts here the last few days.

your position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas

There are still small groups of folks who are apologists for her and her brand of feminism.

Of course, this is to be expected, every discriminated against group has a small percentage of people like this.

My ex-wife and I came to Chapel Hill in 1966 as undergrads, were part of most of the movements and causes that define the 60's.

The women's issues initially on removing onerous rules that required women students be in their dorm rooms weeknights 8-10:30 for closed study, required they wear skirts or dresses on main campus and prohibited pants and shorts.

By 1968-69, the women's movement was dividing into factions that looked and sounded like those in the Black communities. While there were a lot more liberal feminists, the radical feminist were much more vocal, more visible, and more often covered in the press. When they spoke at UNC, anything provocative or extreme they said would be reported by Jesse Helms as the latest liberal outrage, a TP for the RW likely still being used even now.

The radical feminism at that time locally seems to have combined the muddled quasi-Marxist views ( a la Yale and Bennington) that equate marriage and slavery, with men oppressing women, etc. with the lesbian feminist claims that sex is something men do to women, a sexual assault. This gets close to the all men are rapist line in The Womens Room.

Within a few years, nearly all the feminist activists were from one segment of the lesbian community. In grad school, my wife had run ins with several of these activists who had critized how she looked and dressed, and about other things. If you shaved your legs or wore makeup, you weren't welcome, even if you were a lesbian.

Not sure they hated men, but certain they disliked men. They seemed to dislike most everyone else: women who had sex with men, gay men, bi, TS, TV, other lesbians. For years, many remained openly hostile to the local gay groups, refusing to work together on common issues. Things are much different now. You still see some of these type of feminist theory, mostly in academic circles.

""my sole purpose in life is to hate men" people"

who are these people, pray tell?

Last edited Wed Feb 15, 2012, 08:53 AM - Edit history (2)

Lesbian separatism, and political lesbians, were real phenomenons in the 70s. If I can find the book at home that is a collection of personal stories from that era I'll post the name.

ETA: Couldn't find the anthology, but Lavender Culture (noted in an earlier post) has an essay by Charlotte Bunche discussing it from a movement perspective.

I knew quite a few married to men women who identified as lesbian yet never had a sexual attraction to women. I didn't get the point in needing to be so abstract in your self identification like that. It was kind of trendy in New York for about 6 seconds

Personally I'm a Human First...Then Woman...I never think of Race or sexuality because I was born privileged majority...

I probably have a copy of that book somewhere in my garage....eeks Thanks for the memories.

but then I've never had a good head for names. Or faces.

Should I remember you from the several years of the Feminists forum at DU2?

Or maybe from the group here at DU3 sometime in the last couple of months?

Forgive me if I'm being rude, and just put it down to my ancient memory.

this is a perfect example of why this group is not able to recover. Instead of engaging, this is what is posted to a newcomer. I see they did provide some credentials anyway, including DU1. There are many people that read far more than they post. It does not make them any less of a participant.

for using the kind of characterization that was used in the OP.

Seperatist feminists certainly exist, just like the Nation of Islam and the JDL and other reverse-bigoted Jewish organizations.

It's probably a function of the media that any of these organizations gets a lot of airtime. They are only a small minority of women, African Americans and Jews.

than ask for DU or feminist credentials in a passive aggressive way that is obvious to anyone who commands a language.

And for that, I am saddened...truly.

and post about "when the movement was hijacked by the "my sole purpose in life is to hate men" people. "

As your introductory post.

Let me know how that goes.

of course you know that

The idea that all or a majority of feminists engage in anti-male sexism is an inaccurate stereotype. It's terrible that you chose to "grace" us with your presence after disclosing that you buy into such a load of tripe.

I hope you don't plan on continuing to spew that kind of misrepresentation around these parts.

My comments had nothing to do with DU. I just had been paying more attention lately, and caught the unfortunate melt down thread and thought maybe I should do more but having been burned before I was just introducing myself and my background just a bit.

As far as I can remember I participated very early in DU1 but then had to scale back my battles and I chose verified voting and read posts from this group. On DU2 I just kept up and recommended some but did not jump in any more.

It gets so complicated sometimes. I was in the military for a short time in 1970 and the career women were fighting for fair pay and status and to do that they had to have access to promotions and units that were off limits to them. I understood that but I had come in as an axillary person because I was a pacifist and thought we should not be doing any wars of aggression but I also knew that I did not have the right to tell others what to believe in and if women did not become part of the military instead of auxiliary to the military they would literally be second class citizens and told what they could not do not only in the military but in corporations, schools, health care and government. (won't go into it but what was going on with the two tired system was brutal, ugly, and unfair). A good many of the senior brass saw WACS as "comfort women", something that was not only untrue but made it unsafe to be there.

So even though I was a pacifist I supported what the career women were trying to do even if they thought they should be in combat. Complicated.

The folks I am referring to negatively were more like "Fatal Attraction", She-Devil (or "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" than "Blossoms in the Dust" or "First Wives Club". Although revenge fantasies make a good movie they in real life they usually destroy both parties and turn off people you want on your side. I still am not coming up with any real name because I would rather forget those folks but remember what the result was when they got in charge.

Promoting the inaccurate stereotype that the women's movement is or ever was in favor of anti-male sexism is wrong. I'm tired of seeing this misrepresentation in here. Spewing that crap is not consistent with the statement of purpose for this group, which supports feminsim. Not stereotypes about feminism.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

It was a minority, but significant (both in terms of contribution and sentiment) part of feminism in the 70s. I never agreed with it - but it both drew people in and (as in my case) kept people away. And - as I also noted (and we saw from the trolls this week) there are still pockets within feminism where discrimination against trans women still (disgracefully) plays a role. I immediately recognized the sentiment behind the FAAB announcement for what it was worth, because I lived through the time and place when it was most popular - even though the words used to describe it were "womyn born womyn," rather than FAAB.

It is important to know our collective history - so we are prepared to address it.

..... how?

The OP noted:

I had to stop calling myself a feminist back in the day when the movement was hijacked by the "my sole purpose in life is to hate men" people.

A tad blunt, but not far off the mark for a very vocal minority of the women's movement in the 70s. There seem to be a number of folks here who have forgotten (or were never aware of) that part of our history - and I do think it is important that we be aware of it so we don't keep making the same mistakes.

I didn't stop calling myself a feminist, because because I had not yet reached that stage of awareness. I went off to college as a farm girl who had to do all the same work my brothers did, and I didn't see any need - and I was much more embroiled in the controversy over the Vietnam war. But as the war ended and I gained more exposure to blatant discrimination it was very quickly the sole barrier to calling myself a feminist from 1974 through around 1980. I did not want to be associated with a group that felt that way so I found other outlets for my political activism.

(Not that that means I believe that ever hapened, mind.)

Or what mistakes are you referring to?

I find it troubling that we are being reminded not to make some mistake which IMO is nothing but mythologized propaganda against all feminists. There is a fringe movement and a few lightning rod type people, but somehow we're all in danger of what... deciding one day to hate men?

The alternative is that this is a form of the "tone" argument... that if feminists wouldn't be so strident and angry, maybe more people would join. I find that rather troubling as well.

FAAB. It took much more discussion than I expected for people to recognize the implications of that - it was an immediate "click" for me.

Do I think that viewpoint (or more express versions of it) will take over - no. But had they been a bit smoother, and had it not been for the parallel work of the LGBT community in identifying that designation as an anti-trans (not believing trans women are real woman - because they are really still men) I suspect it would have taken even longer.

BUT - as noted in another thread, even though that posture was a turn-off for me - some of those separatist women brought an incredible energy and drive to the movement, and I don't think we should deny that - or their contributions (any more than I think we should deny the contributions of some of the drag queens, and other marginalized people within the gay community, who were able to risk it all at Stonewall to some extent because they had nothing left to lose).

I'm just not in favor of whitewashing history - particularly when I lived through it and around the edges of the women being written off as isolated nut cases (or as being made up by men).

in another online discussion, so it didn't click at all for me. I was confused but no alarm bells were ringing.

I'm less concerned with history than with the current backlash against feminists, and the "man hater" canard is in very widespread use today to shut women's voices out.

In the context these two were using it, it was the equivalent of womyn-born-womyn badge that has been used to denigrate and exclude trans women. And the reason I recognized it was because the first time I encountered womyn-born-womyn I considered myself straight, it wasn't clear what it meant - and I thought it might have been directed at me. And no one would give me a straight answer (much like the dance the one of the pair who was posting was doing).

But - doesn't the "man hater" canard being thrown at feminists feel very much like some of the hatred directed at the more flamboyant members of the gay community? You know, the ones those of us who pass more easily sometimes cringe at, and try to distance ourselves from, in the gay parades? You know - the same ones we owe some of our biggest progress to?

I see the two as being very parallel. Both the Stonewall drag queens and the lesbian separatists sometimes make us uncomfortable (then and now), and both made significant contributions to our movements. I don't hate men - my life is very much an equal mixture of close friends and family who are men, and I have never had any trouble fitting in in the straight world. But here's the part I don't like admitting about myself. There are times I would like to distance myself from both groups - sometimes they make me uncomfortable in public too.

But they are part of my feminist and LGBT communities - and of our collective history - and however uncomfortable that makes me, we would not be where we are today but for their contributions.

and actually the separatists don't really make me uncomfortable, I just hate that the mythology about them is so often used as a derailing tool by those seeking to disrupt feminist spaces and derail conversations.

Which is why I'm really against ever painting any feminist as a "man hater" or any group as "man hating"... it's a lazy generalization which IMO does nothing but further that kind of activity.

and have shared as well that I had the same historical experience as others mentioned above, but do concede that this may well have been a regional thing back then. I don't know how short lived it was back then as it was not something I was interested in pursuing (and I was still quite young), so I went a different path with equality awareness. As a huge proponent for equal rights, I am interested in where feminism fits into todays society to the benefit of all, and what battles are still in need of being addressed.