I do agree with you on this particular point.

Well, don’t I feel put in MY place !?!? Rah rah, sisterhood. [rolleyes]

Bless you Nikki!
I’m only here because you posted here. Now I’m leaving. Let’s go do something interesting instead.

Still, even though I’m flabbergasted at the thought that there could be a feminist interpretation of Moorcock’s Elric (considering what colorless doormats his heroines are), I don’t regard the discussion about him as “gossip.” It was an interesting change from the usual critiques of Dworkin, which are based solely on one ruling and not on her work as a whole. Most of this thread is an interesting change, in fact.

Oh, and Qgrrl, I could change my online name to Sue, and then we could confuse the living daylights out of everyone, friend AND foe. ;)

I’ve been making feminist decisions since I was six years old and have been a feminist activist for three and a half decades, since my mid twenties. There wasn’t any “long, circuitous road” before that.

>B) Used a pseudonym for years on another well-known board.”

I’m not setting up a “false dilemma” or saying not to use aliases at all. I’ve done it. I’ve publicly advocated for it for decades, long before the internet. I think women need to always consider using aliases, and not just on the internet, to protect themselves from spammers, male supremacists and everything in between. I’m thrilled that women are not being so trusting and making themselves vulnerable on any number of levels and excellent points have been made about all the reasons to disguise one’s identity under certain circumstances and I agree with them all. I’ve been exposing sex offenders for 35 years and have been well aware of issues regarding protection and anonymity since the 1970s. For the same amount of time I’ve been doing civil disobedience which made me even more conscious of the balancing act when it comes to issues of personal accountability as juxtaposed with privacy and safety concerns. I’m not talking about nicknames either. From what I’ve read in this thread “Heart” lives the intentionality and practice of the ethic I’m having fantasies about.

I’ve said I’m not speaking about this forum in particular, but lists and blogs all over the internet. I had not even read this forum until yesterday and had only scanned the page when I replied. btw, since that time I’ve read more more carefully: the page, the individual authors and the site in general. (I’ve been laughing my ass off at some, including the great post by Q Girl: “I’m not sure how far this will reach internationally, but fuck off.”) I only wish the high caliber of thoughtfulness found on this thread was representative of what’s on the internet in general. What I’m saying is not aimed at any particular individual/s. It has nothing to do with what any one person said or didn’t say about Andrea on this page. It’s not even necessarily about malicious slander as much as just mindless jabbering about other people, considered public figures, or not, but at least consider that in these public forums, with all these endless speculations, innuendos and rumors, that if you don’t want your own name “out there” that others might not want theirs “out there” either. And if you do put another person’s name “out there” there then do it responsibly and back up your sh*t. And to operate this way in public forums, consistently using a fake name and talking about others in a chit chat and even careless manner while using their real names is, yes, cowardly; certainly I’m not saying that it’s *ALWAYS* cowardly to use an alias.

What I’m suggesting is that anonymity ought not become the “default mode” of feminism. That one doesn’t always have to express even the most general opinions, or even (god forbid :-) defenses (or criticisms) of Andrea Dworkin, or even the most controversial political positions hiding behind all these false identities. It’s irrelevant that anyone can post using any identity they want on the internet. I’m suggesting that feminist and profeminists, too, consider that feminist blogs and feminism in general will have more credibility if they consider coming out of hiding, and taking more individual responsibility for what they are saying, and asserting more courage in their every day lives. This is my opinion.

I wrote:
“Andrea lived a hugely courageous life that mattered. Read her memorial messages that 300 women have written about the impact she had, the difference she made in their lives. It’s a hard course to take, but you can do that too.”

Since I think it might have been misinterpreted, I want to state finally that I wrote this not to “pull rank”, or set up any “feminist hierarchy,” but to say to those who stated on this page that Andrea didn’t accomplish anything with her life that Andrea impacted many women’s lives in very important ways and some of them are documented on her memorial. And you know what? Some of them are documented on this page as well. Like the excellent comment Shiloh wrote:

“Even when I disagree with Andrea Dworkin, the compassion and strength in her writing is a joy to me - and while I don’t agree with some of her harsher statements, I still believe her anger was born out of compassion. She was generally angry about the right things, IMHO. I think her honesty and her willingness to expose herself - expose her experiences, expose her heart -sometimes frightened people who agreed with her even more than it frightened her enemies. Feminism has suffered a great loss through her death.”

Thanks for that and for considering my opinions.

http://www.andreadworkin.net

Actually, I train kittens to mutilate Cialis spammers. ;)

I’m thinking she doesn’t link to her real name or any identifying information for some damn good reasons. It’s not readily available, and it’s the height of ignorance to expect her to make it so. I will not question her commitment to feminism. She does show respect (and quite frankly, deserves it from you), and she is committed.>>

Right, the original topic. Yes, this is a senseless litmus test.

I absolutely agree that these are very good reasons, but I don’t think you even need to go that far. Everyone has good reason not to expose myself online. I have no reason to trust any of you, and very good reasons not to trust people like, well, Heart and LV. My name or email or url plus Whois.com could fill my inbox with hate mail. You all seem sane and law-abiding. You most probably are perfectly fine. But for all I know, you spend your spare time mutilating kittens or spamming for Cialis. There are perfectly reasonable safety arguments to be made in favor of anonymity–particularly for women. Some women decide that they’d rather go public for various reasons–they publish or have offline activities that they _do_ want to publicize. Some women think that the very real danger outweighs any benefit to telling total strangers who they are.

People get fired from their jobs for expressing unpopular opinions online. I’m sorry, but some people NEED their jobs, or else they will lose their homes, and they and their kids will starve to death. Some women aren’t willing to sacrifice that for the sisterhood — and I don’t think the sisterhood (for the most part) would even want them to.

I mean, how much feminist activism can you do after you’ve already starved to death?

I don’t see Nikki calling for an arbitrary rule, or for all aliases or all real life names. I hear her calling for integrity. I hear her calling for honesty. And for feminists giving a modicum of respect to feminists who have given their lives to and for women.

Where have the feminists on this threat not given any respect to Andrea Dworkin? I’m not seeing any attempts at misinformation or trashing being tolerated in this thread–those posts were pulled. I am seeing the feminists who post here get unfairly maligned, and frankly I’m sick of it.

Many of the women who post on this thread dedicate their lives and energies to and for women, and they are among those some of you would trash by pooh-poohing their commitment with your demands that we “respect” Dworkin and other feminists who have done “real” work–the implication being that we haven’t.

Just one example–one of the posters here does extensive work with battered women. Dangerous line of work, especially considering some of stalker/abusers she has to deal with.

I’m thinking she doesn’t link to her real name or any identifying information for some damn good reasons. It’s not readily available, and it’s the height of ignorance to expect her to make it so. I will not question her commitment to feminism. She does show respect (and quite frankly, deserves it from you), and she is committed.

Enough already. Respect goes both ways. You, and LV, and Nikki could start showing it by refraining from trashing us, by stopping this elitist demand for respect like we’re the subjects and you’re the royalty, and by curtailing the urge to falsely accuse us of spreading misinformation about Dworkin. We have not disrespected her, and we have not lied about her.

Just because we don’t yell from the rooftops about our work offline doesn’t mean we’re sitting around doing nothing. You’re coming across as arrogant and patronizing–if you want to know why we “fun” feminist bloggers haven’t linked to you or had lots to do with you, this would be a very big clue for you.

:)

The irony being that anyone can say they are anyone else on the internet and nobody really knows for sure who they are

I appreciate the point you’re making by using Nikki’s name.

Now that you’ve made the point, however, I’m going to ask you to stop using Nikki’s name on my website; only Nikki is allowed to do that, as far as I’m concerned.

You know, this probably isn’t the best place for me to talk smack about a different space, particularly one most posters are not familiar with, and particularly one that isn’t precisely public. Civil-yet-not-quite, you could say. I mean, I really, really don’t want to shut down your half of that sidebar or peremptorily end a two-sided discussion–so I’d love to hear your thoughts and engage your responses to what I’ve said. But I’ll otherwise go back to talking about this stuff in general terms, if that’s okay.

Sorry about the derail, everyone.

Funny, of anyone on the boards, you’ve consistently been the most negative, grudgebearing and in general non-productive poster I’ve seen on Alas, short of the trolls.

Why is it no surprise to me that you’ve now come to this thread to spread the gospel according to LV, which is hardly impersonal or unbiased.

And finally;

Integrity is a hard thing to gauge on the Internet, and I’m personally not comfortable with mine being called into question (granted I post as ‘kim’ which is my RL name), simply because I don’t post with all of my information right there for anyone to use.

I think it’s incorrect to assume that just because a pseudonym is being used, the real person behind it wouldn’t be willing to reveal themselves if the situation warranted. Proving my I-femchismo doesn’t warrant it though.

Finally, I’m not sure the footsoldiers are any less important than the generals in feminism, and I for one am glad for every drop in the bucket that helps the cause, be it under pseudonym or not.

Which is an example we should totally emulate here. Personally, I think invective like “titless wonders” would make these discussions much more useful and interesting. Btw, what is “a Trans?” I see the term a lot, and I have no idea what or whom it refers to.

Also, there’s no invasion issue–Robert isn’t sinning against the laws of the discussion merely by his presence. Anti-feminist people are not unwelcome, period, here the way that transgendered women arguably are on the MWMF boards. The boundaries of the space are not set up in the same way.

It’s disingenuous, furthermore, to act as though rudeness _to antifeminists_ is the only way to get banned. Look at NYMOM. She was banned because she was blaming bitter feminist activist judges for every evil to befall women and mothers since, oh, ever. And Daisy was banned because she was saying misogynist things about women of size, as well as extremely rude and fatphobic things about the other people in the discussion.