December 5, 2012

"Some men were here to learn, and it's not a simple binary, not all of us are men or women."

2 reasons given for why it was wrong to kick all the men out of the discussion session at the London Feminist Film Festival after the screening of Myriam Fougère's "Lesbiana – A Parallel Revolution." The exclusion was at the demand of anti-porn activist and academic Julia Long who asserts that it's "politically disastrous" to have men at feminist events.

Here's a trailer for the film, which is about lesbian separatism in the 1980s. It's interesting to look back to the time before what is now the strongly enforced belief in the proposition that homosexuality is inborn and biological. The 80s ideology entailed political ideas, fighting the patriarchy, and conscious choice, but the film leans heavily on interviews with people today, and there's a temptation — you see it in the trailer — to imposed today's template on the story. Listen to the woman who begins speaking at 0:58 ("I'd like to claim it was my feminist politics, but it was not...").

40 comments:

Matt Sablan said...

Julia Long sounds like a jerk.

chickelit said...

Women are extreme: they are either better or worse than men ~Jean de La Bruyère

rhhardin said...

On the simple binary.

MAD magazine, the planet with 26 sexes.

A growing gang goes from bar to bar to pick up the necessary complement.

"I've never been to a mu-house in my life."

"Mu's are so stand-offish."

Aridog said...

A feature of bull crap movements is that they usually wish to exclude anyone and anything that might derail their argument. Like Pelosi/Obama Care...it frequently works to gain advantage when no opposition is tolerated.

Seeing Red said...

Separate and not equal.

Seeing Red said...

Intolerant as well.

Tim said...

Nothing promotes inclusion like exclusion.

Shouting Thomas said...

I remember back when feminists recruited women to be lesbians in NYC in order to overthrow the patriarchy.

That was before "they were just born that way."

Give it some time and the revolutionaries will reverse themselves again, and end up right back where they started. The problem is that they hate people in reality, although they love them and want to perfect them in the abstract.

We've now reached the era of the closeted hetero. People are more confused about their sexuality than ever before because they are trying so hard to be doctrinally correct.

Why would any man want to attend this event?

test said...

I love how those who disagree with kicking men out only do so because some are their "allies" and similar nonsense. The concept that you should expect to defend criticims of your arguments seems to have ocurred to no one present. But the right suffers from epistemic closure.

YoungHegelian said...

@Prof Althouse,

. It's interesting to look back to the time before what is now the strongly enforced belief in the proposition that homosexuality is inborn and biological.

Isn't it just weird that we're now so old that we have actual HISTORY under our belts?

When we hear some piece of revisionist nonsense we can say "Wait! That's not right. I was there!

Imagine what must have been like for our parents, who lived through WWII. How many times they must have heard some piece of jingoistic nonsense and thought "yeah, right..."

Maybe, just maybe, this may be the beginning of wisdom.....

I know, OT from the topic of lesbian separatism. I'm sorry! How about if I say "Kate Millett"? Is that better?

rhhardin said...

NOW meetings were the place to pick up girls, back in the day.

The patriarchy is used to dealing with women's wishes, whatever they are, because they're not competing with women in the first place.

They're trying to get laid.

Shouting Thomas said...

You have to be an old man to see how feminism is grounded in the sexual manipulation of young men.

Young men will do and say anything to get pussy. They don't mind defaming other men, if that will get them pussy.

Women know this, and they manipulate that zealously to get what they want. When they are young, woman invent grievances in order to get more stuff, and demand that the men get on their white horses and beat up on the bad men who won't give them the stuff they want.

Over time, women begin to believe their own bullshit. And, they are very impressed with themselves for their success in manipulating men into going to war with one another to prove who's the greater White Knight.

Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were not oppressors, nor did they mistreat women any more than women mistreat men. The whole pile of shit is lie stacked on top of lie. All because young men will say and do anything to get pussy.

It's a bizarre aspect of human behavior.

Shouting Thomas said...

Young men, read the Bible story of Adam and Eve.

It contains an essential truth about the nature of men and women.

Don't be ashamed to learn the traditional wisdom. You are being shamed from learning it to make you weak and pliant.

YoungHegelian said...

One of my lefty buddies was involved in a similar debacle in organizing some Latin American/Lefty cultural event in DC.

One of the speakers from Latin America took the speaking opportunity to launch into a racist diatribe on how la raza de oro is so much greater than all the useless honkies in the audience.

It could have come from the mouth of Goebbels if he had spoken Spanish instead of German.

The audience was appalled. Sadly, no one had the courage to smack the little bastard around, which is what you do to people who are rude enough to insult their hosts.

Sorun said...

Observing women's angst about men is somewhat fascinating but also the most pointless time-waster ever.

rhhardin said...

As to sexual types

It's easier to evolve male brain wiring that's attracted to female genitals than to evolve attractive female genitals.

So that's what happens.

It will make no sense to men, but there it is.

It's not hard to imagine that some females wind up with male wiring; and males wind up with female wiring.

These two cross possibilities will have their own stereotypical perceptions and so forth.

It takes some new Paglia to intuit it all into a system, is all.

ndspinelli said...

Chrissake, If they want to market this film they need some good PRETTY females engaged in explicit sex..not his artsy photo horseshit. This is why men still rule the world and own most everything in it.

ndspinelli said...

chickelit, Great quote! And..I happen to believe the opposite. I believe women are the solid middle of our culture. Men are capable of unspeakable horror and awe inspiring good.

TosaGuy said...

" to imposed today's template on the story"

Unfortunately, too many of today's historians do that.

TosaGuy said...

" to imposed today's template on the story"

Unfortunately, too many of today's historians do that.

YoungHegelian said...

@nd,

I think if you draw a Venn diagram of "late 70's lesbian separatists" and "...good PRETTY females..." there is no intersection of the two sets.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Give it some time and the revolutionaries will reverse themselves again, and end up right back where they started.

Modern revolutionary types are more about playing revolutionary than they are about achieving a revolutions goals. A real successful revolution would be the death knell to their carefully crafted identities.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hagar said...

All embryos start out the same, except for the presence or absence of the Y-chromosome. Then at about 6 weeeks, if it is there, some amino acids start to form, which turns on genes that causes other acids to form, and so on, and if all goes well the end result is a male of the species. Likewise, if the Y is not there, the end result should be a female. However, either way, it is very much a Rube Goldberg process that can result in all sorts of variations, just as long as enough goes right that the species survives. And "right" in this case means just that - enough to ensure propagation of the species.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The truly ironic part of all this is that these same Feminists will be throwing hissy fits in a week because no one respects them or their cause.

Carol said...

'How about if I say "Kate Millett"? '

Her "Looney Bin Trip" is a good read.

Shouting Thomas said...

Just read a new Steve Sailer piece on the causes of the political and social upheaval of the 60s.

It's fascinating, and in many ways, I think, true.

Anonymous said...

I think the elements of contract law are similar in the UK and US here. Offer, consideration, acceptance. As no woman only criteria was included for either audience member or panel member, Julia Long should be held responsible for any costs arising from from this event, she should pay a civil penalty, and be banned from any similar participation for at least a year.

Methadras said...

Leftist insanity extends to feminism and the feminist movement. A preposterous notion that women are at least if not superior to men. Men and women are different. People have let this mafia grow into this monstrosity.

Crunchy Frog said...

So let me get this straight: there are women-only healthclubs, movie screenings, stores, this, that, and the other, and that is not only acceptable, but entirely appropriate. But anything "men-only" (like say, Augusta National) causes the feminazis to go batshit crazy.

Does anyone else see the irony in this? It's almost like the people who say they want equality really don't after all.

Nah, couldn't be...

Chip S. said...

Lesbiana! the musical.

An Indigo Girls version of Mamma Mia!

David said...

Totalitarians.

Howard said...

Any man that want's to go to an intense feminist "happening" deserves to be turned away at the door.

edutcher said...

It is a simple binary, like it or not.

And the guys were there for the fish taco, of course.

carrie said...

It was feminist politics in the 1970s and 1980s that did make some women experiment with lesbianism and then later decide that it was not for them. Lesbianism was very political in the 1970s and 1980s and I would guess that there is still a political component.

hawkeyedjb said...

"Not all of us are men or women"

I'll bet we are...

Except, on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

So maybe not.

JAL said...

I remember the parade(s) where the protesters / performers chanted that they were out to recruit people's children.

Doesn't fit the narrative anymore.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I was pro-feminist as long as I thought the end was equality of the sexes. Once it became clear that feminists believed females were the superior sex, I stopped being pro-feminist.

I was anti-racist as long as I thought the end was equality of the races. Once it became clear that it was forbidden to consider blacks racist, I saw the true end of racial demagoguery.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Men are homosexuals because they love men.

Women are homosexuals because they hate men.

Kirk Parker said...

hawkeyedjb,

"...on the internet, nobody knows..."

Oh come on, that problem was solved internet-years ago:

"Ah, the Internet--where men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents!"