There’s been a bit of discussion lately about how men who posture as pro-feminists are worse than useless, such as John Stoltenberg or this Dude.
I could write an entire essay about each “pro-feminist”, why and how what they write and do is wrong, but it’s a complete waste of energy and time because all we need to know is that men cannot be feminist and should not get ANYWHERE NEAR feminism or talking in the name of feminism, at all. They are not to be given any important or prominent tasks within any feminist organising, they are not to be given any position or presence (even small, let alone a public one) within any feminist group or woman’s support group, and are not to be integrated in any decision-processes or debates concerning women whatsoever; they should refuse any such position or invitation even if asked by women.
The pattern is that pro-feminist men will very easily occupy and monopolise key positions and publicity in feminism so they can posture as heroes-victims-of-masculinity, and behind the scenes, not only do they do NOTHING to help women but they continue to steal women’s work, abuse women, manipulate women, rape women, promote the work of rapists or publish misogynist content, etc, etc ad nauseum.
The foremost reality about so-called pro-feminist men however is that their mere presence (just PRESENCE, that is, without even saying anything YET) inevitably and automatically triggers in most women the illusion that men can, after all, be nice and care about women, and that it is worth staying around them investing energy and time trying to change them (and why not be my nigel?). In other words, it reinforces trauma-bonding to men, or alternatively, causes consciously-experienced fear, rage, suspicion, hypervigilance or other normal reactions to men’s presence. This means that men’s presence will inevitably be experienced as a threat by women, whether consciously or unconsciously, and will thus paralyse movement into feminism. Whether we want it or not. Encouraging trust and especially trauma-bonding to men endangers all women, exposes women to more abuse and surveillance from men, it prevents women from going to the end of our thoughts and sabotages women’s spaces and work.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg, this chain of paralytic effects on women caused by their mere presence in feminist spaces. This alone is enough to warrant their complete exclusion from all things feminist, before we even look at what scum they might be.
To make it easier for everyone, I will lay out a brief and very simple, minimalistic instruction manual as to what men can do if they are taken by the desire to give women a hand in destroying man’s dominion. It’s not an instruction as to how to be a feminist man, because as I said earlier, it doesn’t exist and men’s presence is highly undesirable and noxious to feminism. It’s not an instruction as to how to free women from men, because only we can do that. It’s just, if men want to do something for women, this is the LEAST, the VERY LEAST they can do, and it’s easy! No need to say anything! No faux-posturing or lying needed! No invading of women’s spaces! No stealing women’s work!
- Stop sticking your dicks in women. This is rape. This is torture.
- Stop sticking your dicks in women. NOW. For EVER!!!! Ever ever. Like, don’t ever put your dick in a woman or a girl again.
- The above is the utmost, absolute MINIMUM men can do to help women. This does not even count men’s infinite every-day torture that surrounds rape and impregnation of women by men that they should stop too. A man who sticks his dick in girls and women is a rapist (and scum). He is not helping women.
- Give back to women what you, and men in general, have stolen from women:
- Women need Land. Give land back to women.
- Women need money. Give money back to women.
- Women need houses and rooms of our own. Give houses back to women.
- Women need resources (food, water, equipment of all sorts…). Give resources back to women.
- Women need time. Clean your own shit.
- Reminder: stop using your dick against women, stay away from feminism, and refuse any credit for your what you give back to women. For a thief is not to be thanked for handing back what he stole.
This, above, is also the LEAST men can do. It’s very easy, all it takes is doing it, with no consequences to men’s personal integrity other than minor material loss. As opposed to more complicated things, like sabotaging the porn and prostitution industry, ridding us of the most violent rapists and abusers, things like that. Which men are also free to do of course, but let’s start with more simple things and see how it goes, ay?
To all women who may be reading: remember: if a man claims to help women, ask yourself (or him) what he does: does he continue to stick his dick into women? Yes? You can forget him. Is he parasiting a space meant to be reserved for women (feminism, support for victims, healing groups, whatever female only space…)? Easy: he shouldn’t be there, his very presence is anti-feminist. You can forget him too, or tell him to get out. If he doesn’t, then, bye bye. He claims to do things useful to women? Does he do any of the above, discreetly, without taking any credit for it, and making sure it goes to the right hands? Take it and don’t look back! Don’t feel grateful! It is impossible to steal anything from a man.
radical wind 
Just so you know, this is more of a thought experiment for women because I have yet to see a man that actually does something useful to women as said above. But try this litmus test on any man!! It’s eye-opening if you haven’t already seen it.
Reblogged this on A space to share our joy. and commented:
Yep. Absolutely. Men who want to help, read this list.
Brava!!!!! I spend half my time telling quasi-feminists that men *cannot* be feminists…
And what results do you get?
Mary Daly had one of the best responses I’ve ever heard. “If men want to be helpful, they can get the hell out of our way.”
men getting out of our way is obviously the number one priority, which goes with them not putting their dicks in women. I focused on feminist spaces but what I said above goes for all spaces
I repeat: this is a very minimal litmus test for men to qualify as “not too scum” (I shouldn’t even call it help because it’s what women are due, it’s not like they’re doing us an extra favour by doing it), and yet, not a single “pro-feminist” passes this test (or other men for that matter).
My point about the stuff with the land, money and so on is that men never actually do any of these, which would actually be helpful to women in very concrete ways. Just giving back what they stole from us. I don’t think men will start doing it though, because everything they give to women is conditional, that is, on the condition they can access women.
What they do is give crumbs (when they give any at all, because usually just saying “i am feminist” is enough to count as a crumb) and use this to invade and rape us more.
STOP STICKING YOUR DICKS IN WOMEN and STOP STEALING FROM WOMEN/RESOURCE-HOARDING! yes! men actively oppress women and if they stopped doing this, things would improve for women. there is a lot of good, fertile radfem (rather than libfem) ground here, because it makes sense in a do-nothing (in-action) way which is potentially radical and not reformist. instead of asking them to GIVE IT BACK (which requires reformism, or action on either our part or theirs) i might even frame it as just stop stealing and hoarding. same result for women both ways — we get stuff, or get it back — since stealing/hoarding encompasses all the ways men come to own anything, they do not own anything legitimately.
the thing is too, this shows that womens oppression is not “natural” as it requires do-ing and constant action and maintenance by men. IOW if left alone, (or if “let go to seed”) the playing field would level, but they wont let it. this indicates that although womens oppression is not natural or inevitable, MENS desire and insistence on oppressing us *is* natural or inherent to themselves. again, this is fertile radfem ground. its also self-evident and beyond debate.
By giving back, one might also conceive it as leaving women the authority of resources and land, since we will use it better than men.
Yes I do agree that men’s desire to oppress or need to oppress us is inherent to what they are. So they will always be driven to facilitate this need socially and through action.
the giving “back” as opposed to giving (without the “back”) was meant as a way to make us think that no matter how much a man gives us, we do not owe him anything since all resources men have are capitalised on women’s slave labour and women’s captivity to men for PIV and breeding. So men have no claim on anything they own. Maybe it rejoins the authoritah vs. authority point.
It could be framed as non-action in the sense that men simply leave what they took (land, houses, whatever), walk out of any of their positions of power or status, and let women do what we need to do, and we will do it naturally, once they are out of our way. No need for control, no need for interaction or transaction, no need for activating or reformism if they decided to do so. They would just leave things and get out of it. So we could be free to reorganise our world according to biophilic and gynocratic principles again.
I have lots more to say about men’s biology and violence, and the things this exploration opens up for radical feminism. It is really a passionate road and such a shame that more radfems won’t explore it. And it’s really obvious why it’s a forbidden road, because it leads closer to truth about men and men don’t want us to see it, because thought leads to action (or in-action / non-action). Every time I uncover more scientific data about men and their biological / genetic relationship to women, every time it creates the kind of “click” in my head that happens when major insights are put in place which illuminates the rest of my brain in ways that hadn’t before. And the knowledge just FITS with exactness to the way they act and the structure of the society they built to facilitate their needs (access women for breeding / PIV).
And maybe we should differentiate actions that are about controlling others, and call it control (ie reformism) and call action, action that doesn’t involve controlling others but – for instance – ceasing to engage with men and abusive people, or creating conditions of freedoms for ourselves here and now.
So in this sense, thoughts de lead to action and ways of being that threaten men’s dominion. This is why we can’t even THINK about going there. I have heard that from many women actually, “*I* can’t go there and think this because..(reasons)”.
yes i believe this goes with the authority/authoritah idea very well. 😀 WOMEN have divine authority (or just “authority” without a qualifier) over land and resources, or at the very least MEN DONT and the proof of this is that men have destroyed the world.
Love this, thanks for posting! I continually shake my head about the insane idea that we can solve the problem of male domination and male violence by soliciting help from men. Hog wash. Would African American’s solicit the KKK’s help? You can’t solve the problem, with the problem. Period!
Coincidentally a man has also come up with his own set of actions for men to further feminist revolution. Weirdly enough they don’t even touch on any of the items on your list. But it did give him the opportunity to write a very long piece bamboozling women into believing that he’s thought about this and is actually doing something, which is what’s important for male feminists.
http://thefeministwire.com/2013/06/against-patriarchy-tools-for-men-to-further-feminist-revolution/
I’d add one more to your list – spill the beans. Men are completely silent about what they know they and other men do to women and say about women. They let feminists do enormous amounts of work to uncover the truth, when we will always be at a disadvantage because the brotherhood keeps it secrets. Any man has at the tip of his fingertips information about woman destruction and how men do it and what they know about it, that it takes years for feminists to uncover, and there is still so much kept secret from us. If men ever directly told us the truth about themselves, women would all be running for the hills.
Spilling the beans and giving us information about them and how they organise their destruction of women, yes indeed! Very good point Delphyne. They are the ones DOING it and PARTICIPATING in it. They know what men say, know and think of women when women aren’t there and how they use the ropes available to them to get women do what they want of them.
Interestingly enough, faux-feminist men are very intent in NOT telling the truth about men, or in making women believe that men are genuinely committed to the liberation of women, including themselves. They don’t disclose what they themselves think of women, what they do to women and what their intentions are all about.
And I agree if men told the truth about themselves women would run for life. That tells the extent of their lying.
I read in Sonia J’s book “out of this world”, where Sonia quoted a university experiment in the 70s: female researchers interviewed women working as secretaries in big corporations. they asked these women to name the men they found most woman-friendly, trustful and nice (I can’t remember what the exact criteria, but along these lines). So the researchers secretly recorded the conversations of these men. When the research was finished, they invited all the women who had participated in a conference room and played the recordings. It turned out all the nice men were as filthy woman-hating as the others. The women were shocked and some even quit their jobs after that.
These are the kinds of experiments that we can do for eye-opening purposes, and the things that men can do especially: record conversations and publish them to show how vile men are
Haha, secret recordings of men’s conversations. If feminist academics were doing that kind of research now instead of promoting pole-dancing to their students, it would all be over. Every woman would be signed up for the revolution. I love the fact women actually walked out of their jobs when they heard the truth coming from the lips of the men they worked with.
Yes, feminist men want to keep us running round in circles, intent on believing the myth of the good man, the man who can change, and wondering how we can just get all the other men to be like him. They will never tell the truth about themselves or other men. Meanwhile they are sucking our energy and predating on us in any groups they manage to access or any woman they mange to attach to. I think the list of demands women need to make, in order to even begin to secure our freedom, demonstrates what an impossibility women’s hopes for men really are.
That would be a far more interesting and relevant way of doing “discourse analysis” lol.
Note that on the man’s tool guide, it’s assumed that the male reader it’s addressed to will be from a different planet arriving on earth and having no clue what men do to women, let alone participate in it himself. He’s just supposed to “learn” about it (although learn what, it’s not clear, cause there’s loads of long words replacing the word “man” and “men’s violence”), pay attention to people saying things, and errr, that’s it.
Note that in this context, suggesting men to 1: read and listen to feminists and 2 : do nothing else (especially not stop PIV/rape/abuse); is actually the worst thing to do. What do men do with what they read and learn from feminists? First, they don’t understand it, but most importantly, THEY USE IT AGAINST WOMEN. All they will understand is that women are being suspicious of men, are getting away from their control and they had better correct that sitution by whichever means possible.
This is pretty much basic wisdom for a radfem, but it bears repeating: it is suicidal to talk to men about feminism and try to “educate them” or argue with them (or talk to them at all) or give them what we know about them (and what we don’t know). It’s like handing our liberation tools to men on a platter, for them to improve on their control and manipulation and psychological torture tactics. Men rely on our constant transparency and openness, and they despise us for it too, because they know to conceal their thoughts and intentions at most if not all times (whenever necessary in fact). Telling men about feminism is equivalent to confessing to torturers.
Women: DO NOT GIVE MEN ANY RADFEM MATERIAL, EVER!!!!!
Arguments and the lame insistence that we ne-eeed men to build a movement.
Invariably, they come crying to me when they are betrayed by the “feminist men” in their ranks…
Women can do this with zero assistance form men, some just do not know that yet.
the “list” on feminist wire is 20 freaking items long. 20! thats 10 times more than necessary, and as delphyne says didnt happen to mention the “2” that are actually likely to work, and central to womens oppression by men. what a shock! i especially liked how he reminded activist men to not-rape activist women at feminist actions and meetings. it of course wouldnt occur to any of them that the risk to women of being raped by other activists would drop to zero if they organized without men.
“every time it creates the kind of “click” in my head that happens when major insights are put in place which illuminates the rest of my brain in ways that hadn’t before.”
That’s well said 🙂 That *rush* that comes with the TRUTH clicking/connecting is what freedom is to me (given the many constraints placed upon my “freedom”) even though that truth may be… daunting to say the least.
And, oh my, YES! to spilling the beans!! It’s the very least they could do.
Yes I find that connections have a very physical aspect to it. It transforms me too. Maybe over time I will be able to describe it with more accuracy but this is probably obvious to anyone who knows about the spiritual-brain-body connections. I would say that these “clicks” are what the freeing process looks and feels like to me.
what else could there be to say about pro-feminist men really? I was only stating the obvious and yet the reason I’m doing it is because men are damn good in deceiving even radfems into believing we have an interest in allying with men. We know that any man posturing as pro-feminist is by definition duplicitous and forwarding a male agenda. By his very presence in feminism. (and we know that men should get out of our way in general anyway but here we’re talking about men wrt feminism). What kind of male agendas or ideologies do men typically push forward as they posture as pro-feminists? Well as FCM (and Delphyne wrt DGR) have been spelling it out in all possible different ways lately, they are very intent in making women believe that men aren’t born rapey, that maleness is learned, imposed on men through education, that men should just take off their “masculine armour”, and of course, men should do PIV with equality (or attention, care, or something)!
So let’s recap: they say – men aren’t REALLY men, they’re not born men, men can change. They defend PIV. And men’s presence in feminism. In fact all this is evidence of the exact opposite of what they’re saying: wherever they are and whatever they pretend to be, men do not change. Men are visibly always driven by their desire to enforce PIV on women and will go to any lengths to make this seem a reasonable or desirable thing for women, even if it takes a few to pretend to be feminist. It’s not a surprise that the kind of feminism men allow to be promoted (and the one they promote themselves) through male media is the one that encourages women to do reformism and equality activism and invest time and energy in changing men – it is logical to conclude from this that if men WANT us to believe in their change-capacity and they actively promote such ideas themselves, then that will be exactly what benefits THEM and reinforces our subjugation to them. So looking and uncovering the truth about maleness is what they’re trying to prevent us from doing.
WW said: “Men are visibly always driven by their desire to enforce PIV on women…”.
So true. I have heard two different males admit that sex [PIV] is uppermost in their minds at all times. Even the infamous J. Serano cops to “needing” to get off 1-3 times a day before he “transitioned”. When you hear these kinds of beans being spilled, it becomes glaringly obvious what they think women are–something to stick their dicks in. Would that women would learn this and never forget it for a second.
Back in the days when I had just become feminist, and understood how men’s domination worked, but still believed men were just doing it wrong and could change or become like us somehow and that they could share our outrage at the crimes, I remember having arguments with several male acquaintances. I don’t know how those discussions came up but I was always talking about feminism and men’s violence so it wasn’t hard for them to press on the right buttons and wind me up (because I still thought at the time it was worth convincing them).
Anyway, I must have been explaining to them what men’s violence was and which form it takes (PIV/rape), and EVERY TIME men replied to me “but we have drives”. “But we have drives”. “But we have drives”. “We can’t help it we have drives”. “But we NEED sex”. And I would reply “but that’s not true, humans don’t have drives, we have no biological impulse for intercourse, it’s learned. The “drives argument” is just a lie to cover and justify the rapes”. And the I would argue how rape has nothing to do with sex but all to do with domination. I refused to consider what they said about themselves, I refused to believe them, I thought they were lying to me and that they just bought into the ideology that said that dominating women was an impulse and that men couldn’t help it.
Well, now I see things differently. Or I think that there was truth in both sides. PIV is ALWAYS, ONLY an act of domination against women, that is true. But this is true only from women’s perspective and experience. Because for men it is ALWAYS sex, and domination and sex are the same thing for men. Sex is only exercised through domination and domination is sexual to them. Domination and submission sexually arouses them and this seems to be how they feel anything at all (such symptoms can appear with women too, but for women it is pathological as opposed to natural – purely trauma-related and can be cured). This doesn’t negate my argument that men have to elaborate strategies of violence and domination to enforce their dicks on women, because of course we would otherwise resist it or get away from it. Anyway, that’s something I would like men to spill the beans about. When did they start feeling everything only through their dicks, and how does this operate, from the genital arousal feelings to the thoughts to action of raping? What’s the mechanism of it? I can’t even think of doing a survey because it would be disgusting. Though I guess it would clarify a lot.
I don’t for a minute believe they can’t control their “drive”. They just don’t want to. In addition to satisfying their desire for domination over women, as you say, WW, males use dominating (raping/PIV) women as a means to dominate each other. That is, they compare the number of their “conquests” to see who comes out on top, as it were. Competition with each other seems to be another of their “drives” that harms women.
That’s a tricky one to me. This doesn’t resolve the question of why men seem to experience outer and inner life mostly through erections, and especially why they mostly seem to experience violence this way, whether it’s sexualised or not. Drives is the wrong word I think, perhaps erection+violence-addiction would be more accurate to describe what seems to be happening. Also if that’s just how men were, that is, that’s the way they function neurobiologically, then I can’t see how you control it. They would still want to experience violence+erections (therefore PIV).
The thing is, women don’t naturally have these genital arousals or only infrequently (when groomed to do so through sexual violence), and don’t naturally want to experience life this way. So we don’t have to control ourselves not to do it.
men could theoretically “control” themselves externally through strict social controls such as mandatory life imprisonment for the smallest infraction including even *thinking* about women or children in a violent or sexually violent way. they could turn themselves in for this, they could make it a crime. they could enforce the laws we already have against these things for that matter. but they dont.
whether they could control themselves from within is another matter. but all humans experience frequent, strong physical urges to defecate for example, and we dont normally go around shitting on each other. im just saying. so i would postulate that it is *possible* to control physical urges from within too, or to designate proper times and places for this kind of “release.” its notable that men do in fact use women as their sexual toilets — our bodies are just warm washcloths (or kleenex) to them. i suppose if they were so inclined they could just use an actual toilet instead. but again, they dont.
Men do in fact control themselves all the time. Just as we don’t shit all over the place, they don’t go around raping 24/7. They choose their victims, choose the time, etc. It’s the fact that they can even think about it all the time and desire it or find it desirable which is the problem, because, as we know, thought informs action.
Mary Daly developed this a bit in pure lust, where she explains over a few pages how men spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to purify themselves from she calls their “lechery” (i think the word is apt). And that this is where male pseudo asceticism and obsession with purification (of their lechery, but which they project onto women) comes from. Unfortunately she doesn’t develop this idea any further and I’m left to think about all this.
Again, men make an equivalent between normal physical urges (such as wanting to pee) and their erection-violence addiction thing. But I don’t think this is correct because peeing doesn’t involve perverse thoughts and violence or annihilation. It isn’t necrophiliac in other words. There is actually no need to control because if we were in a non-patriarchal world there wouldn’t be anything taboo or dangerous in peeing in front of people, because we wouldn’t risk being raped. Also, it wouldn’t be perceived as disgusting but something natural, and the wastes would be left to the earth.
Men make peeing and pooing into something disgusting, they eat it and drink it in BDSM, they make it something shameful because their own thoughts about it are shameful
Mary Daly talked about the monks who would flagellate themselves to the point of bleeding, that they would inflict extreme conditions of hunger, thirst, physical and mental deprivation to themselves, in the attempt to “purify” their souls of “carnal thoughts”. All male religions seem to include these kind of controls on men. One can read it partly as a way to oppress men and keep them in control through punishments.
Also, back to the pooing, unless it is done in a way to degrade someone (like forcing someone to eat it), pooing doesn’t naturally involve dominating someone at all, it doesn’t mean anything else than pooing, so this is why men don’t have the same urge to poo, because as it doesn’t involve violence, it won’t give them the kicks. What gives them the kicks is erection + violence.
All I know is that women don’t experience things in this way. We may be colonised by the violence, or in other words drugged to violence or sexual violence or violent thoughts as a form of traumatic re-enactment. But we can heal from it, even in patriarchy, in spite of men’s violence and constant propaganda. And even when we’re colonised by male violence we don’t feel the need to transform absolutely every aspect of our lives into an exercise of domination, power over, or a metaphor for PIV/rape (to give us the kicks). That is because only men have this erectile mechanism plus the male characteristics combined with it (less corpus callosum, parasitism to femaleness).