Support, don't Silence, the Work of Sheila Jeffreys

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Men, of all ages and varieties, have always worked quite hard to silence anything and everything radical feminists--and radical lesbian feminists in particular--have wanted to say.

And, as we all know, there are always far too many people who aren't men who are willing to do their dirty work for them. The silencing of radical feminists and promotion of the social-economic-political practices of CRAP is big business and men pay each other and women a lot to try and shut up radical feminist women.

At issue in this post: what Sheila Jeffreys says and writes. Some people call her work anti-man, anti-gay, transphobic, and wh*rephobic--each term of which is absurd, or terribly misused, or virulently misogynistic when examined in reality at all. Isn't the work of radical lesbian feminists to promote political viewpoints, analysis, and actions that put women (and not anyone else) at the center of concern, particularly the least privileged and most marginalised women? When men put the interests of men (and not anyone else) at the center of their work, I don't see people throwing around the term "transphobic" calling out THE MEN for doing so. I don't see people who use the term "transphobic" systematically taking on men and male supremacy at all, actually. Why is that? Is it because the people regularly hurling that term at women to silence and discredit women are anti-radical, antifeminist misogynists? I'd say, for the most part and usually, YES.

What the fuck does "wh*rephobic" mean, anyway? Has the person I found online--who I won't link to--who uses this term, actually decided this is pro-woman? How does it actually become revolutionary and feminist to use the terms men use against women and add the word "phobic"? Are there "b*tchphobic" and "sl*tphobic" people too?

This use of language reveals a politics of status quo-protection, and it's a pro-CRAP activity that will do nothing good for women as a class of people oppressed by men, globally. In the opinion of this activist, such liberal reclamation of woman-hating terms, that men actively continue to use to pretend there are such distinct kinds of lesser people ("wh*res", "b*tches, "sl*ts", and so on), is not only anti-woman but supports women being degraded and subordinated by men, in reality.

1. Anti-man, or misandrist: what the hell does that actually mean? What do people who are "anti-man" actually do in the real world of action and systematised oppression? The assumption is that such people are women-not-men. Not a wise conclusion to come to, given that the most man-hating people I've ever met are men-not-women. But given that the ridiculous assumption is that women are "anti-man", do such people rape men? Do they beat men so as to land the doods in the hospital? Do they terrorise men in the home, and travel the world to sexually assault boys and men who are trapped in systems of prostitution which are are, usually, slave trafficking-rings?

2. Anti-gay. There are lots and lots of people who are anti-gay who we need to worry about because of their structural power and privilege. They're called het men--you'll notice them by paying attention to who is economically, socially, religiously, and politically in charge of everything.

When lesbian feminists are called "anti-gay", what that generally means is that the lesbians don't prioritise the needs and lives of gay men over the needs and lives of lesbian women. And so they're called anti-gay. This means that most if not all gay men are anti-lesbian, because I've known few to none who put pro-woman and pro-lesbian political objectives and campaigns before pro-gay ones.

3. Transphobic. The more I examine the social online use of this term, the clearer it becomes it's just a term for "anti-feminist" and "pro-patriarchal" in queer sheep's clothing. This comes as no surprise given that dominant academic "Queer Theory" and dominant queer culture generally has been working hard to shut up and shut down radical lesbian feminists and the activist efforts to free women from heteropatriarchal atrocities and institutionalised insults.

4. "Wh*rephobic". Um. Please. Just stop. It's about as misogynist a term as I've ever seen. You know a term is politically ridiculous when you can replace the "phobia" suffix with "philia" and have the word mean the same thing. "Wh*re-philic". Yeah. I'd say any man who declared himself a lover of wh*res isn't pro-feminist or pro-woman.

People: cut the conservative and liberal (read: capitalism-conserving, racism-reinforcing, atrocity-accepting, patriarchy-preserving) CRAP. Really. It's actually oppressing, terrorising, and killing people: girls and women inside and outside systems of prostitution, for example. And girls and women inside nuclear families. And girls and women everywhere else.

Radical lesbian feminists have terrorised and killed no one at all. Get a fucking grip. If you don't like what a radical lesbian feminist of any color and region says, here's a thought: don't read their written work and don't listen to their speeches. Because those really are about the only places you'll ever hear from them, given how much media silences them. And every single radical lesbian feminist I know has gotten death threats and is punished socially for her views and activist efforts. 

Sheila Jeffreys is my sister. 

Here's some her VERY important work:

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