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Radical Feminism is failing because it’s too racist (part 2)

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[–]pennyheax 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm glad you came back and explained.

The anti-semite post is fucking YIKES but it looks like it's not actually from Spinster but from the Fediverse feed? I'm new to spinster so I'm not that familiar with it, but if you look at the @gab.com part at the end of that guy's name, I believe that's the server they're on. Try sticking to just the "Spinster" tab instead of the Fediverse one, and you should get exclusively radfem stuff.

Personally, I've only been here for a little while (most of it lurking) but I do occasionally get moments where it's extremely clear that I'm in a majority-white space. A post here and there will give me those sorts of vibes (I think that I felt them previously when BLM came up and also in the response to your post, where a number of responders blithely dismissed your concerns or jumped to thinking you were a troll rather than trying to engage you). What I did notice in some of the more blatantly racially problematic posts I saw in the past was that the mods ended up removing them, so I wonder if maybe you saw shit like that before the mods had a chance to take it down.

[–]Bitchcraft 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

You are 100% right about the "@gab" thing. Spinster is part of the mastodon fediverse, the first time you click on the Fediverse tab, you get a popup explaining it to you. u/meerkat, you should be a bit more careful.

[–]DogeWalker 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In fairness, I can understand how the whole Fediverse thing can be confusing. I'm sometimes caught off-guard by seeing Gab stuff on spinster.xyz, and I'm someone with an above-average understanding of how the fediverse is supposed to work. That's why I think it was a notably odd choice for Spinster to use Gab as a base, rather than Pleroma or Mastodon... and unfortunately, the Spinster founders' choice reflects back on the rest of the community as their site gains notoriety.

[–]peregrine_throw 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Are you intentionally being obtuse? You really think my reply was saying "let them be racist because racism is totes okay"? Lol Yawn. Good luck with life.

[–]Syphii 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I noticed that as well. This entire post feels malicious. I have been with r/GC daily since 2014, and I would have dropped this group in a heartbeat if I honestly thought racism was being allowed in this group. The most questionable post I've experienced was discussing how to physically differentiate between males and females aside from sex organs, which was shut down incredibly quick saying we don't allow body shaming here. There have been multiple posts about TRA and their blatant racism, which has been heavily criticized here for being racist.

The only example she provided of us supposedly being racist isn't even from us, and the rest are links to comments asking for proof. That example is from a fascist vegan account @gab, which I have no idea why that is being attributed to us. It's like blaming us for alt-right groups posting here (saidit) who we are not affiliated with, and we have literally no control over other saidit groups here. In addition to all of this, our mods are equal members of this community and they are in no way 'leaders' for radfem groups. Hopefully, this is a misunderstanding of how saidit and spinster websites work but I'm rather pessimistic.

[–]Irascible-harpy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Uh oh. You seem to be getting a little tired. Better misquote an excerpt of her original post and use it as a call out.

[–]lefterfield 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Ok, but... it's not failing because it's "too racist." It's being pushed out of the public awareness because it's too critical of males and supportive of females. Regardless of whether there is also a racial problem in GC communities, don't pretend like that's the primary reason the majority of ALL PEOPLE have issues with it.

[–]DifferentAirGC 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Indeed. Even a lot of women don't like us because they were taught to put men above everything. The reason gc "fails" is because of men and women groomed by the patriarchy.

[–]Diversity_Racket 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

To your first point, I'm sure someone else can explain it better but here's what I understand: Spinster is part of a greater network of social networks, many of the users on those networks are alt-right, fascist, etc. We've basically been forced to occupy the same spaces as these groups because we've all been censored for our "hateful" views. They do not represent Spinster users in any way. Your example is of a user who is part of a different network. You can tell by the domain, in this case their domain was @gab.com. If you're not sure, just stick to the Spinster (should you decide to create an account again) tab.

Also, I understand why you say you feel you have to lighten the post given the perceived backlash, but I think you should be angry if that's your lived experience. As women, we're always made to feel bad or mocked for being too emotional (and then for women of colour there's an added layer to it. eg. the angry Black woman trope). I would hate for you to feel like you have to police your tone in here.

I disagree with the moderator point though. I think there is a slippery slope in moderation, and the moderation at GC (RIP GC) was pretty solid imo. I'd rather have people speak honestly (even if it sometimes hurts because it is necessary to have uncomfortable conversations), than be worried - yet again - about censorship of posts/opinions, etc.

Also, vegans unite!

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Adding to the clarification that .gab is not spinster, just as SaidIt is not s/GC, and Reddit was not r/GC. If you wander out of this group here, you will also see some horrifically racist content.

Until we have our own site, where we aren't forced to share platforms with bigots and racist, we're always one click sideways from the hate. That's the downside of large-platform space sharing.

Do you really wish failure on all of Gender Critical and Radical Feminism because of that?

(edit for clarity)

[–]Moirawr 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Blaming radfems for racist comments from non-radfems. Railing against opinions that nobody has. Pointing to other trolls as proof of the problem. Pretending to not understand when it’s been explained several times. Oh yeah and don’t forget, we deserve to be silenced for something there is zero evidence of. I think that’s enough. Troll, nothing to see here.

[–]FuriousPenguin 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Honestly I never saw racist content on GC (haven't been on Spinster) but then again I was more of a lurker there. I clicked on topics I liked and saved articles and content I was interested in. But I can imagine how difficult it would be to see racist content in a movement that's meant to liberate and improve lives of women. I struggle with racism in my life, be it work or social life so I am sensitive to these issues. But where I come from being a woman is much more difficult than the colour of my skin so I'll be staying to give and receive support. Hopefully there are no racist posts in this GC.

[–]Amareldys 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

You make a lot of good points. I feel forums like reddit, and saidit, tend to bring out horrible racial points of view and reinforce them. This is not limited to the GC community, but the GC community is part of it.

Radical feminism SHOULD be for all women, but all women are going to bring in their own biases and issues and that's gonna include racism unfortunately.

I know navigating racial waters and feminism can be very tricky for white women. Trying to support women who are being harmed in other societies can lead to bashing those societies and bring out racism. Ignoring women in those societies because one is afraid of looking racist throws those women under the bus and is its own form of racism. So we need to be careful, but make sure we are still supporting all women of all colors.

I think the people criticizing Islam tend to also be criticizing Christianity. I haven't noticed much glorification towards Christianity. I will say both of these religions are ideologies and criticizing an ideology is different than bashing a race.

The people criticizing Judaism on the left, be they liberal feminists or left wing men or rad fems are often angry about the Israel/Palestine situation. I agree there is a lot wrong with that situation, I think however you are right and it DOES spill over into anti-semitism, or gets used as a handy cover for it.

[–]fuckingsealions 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nothing to add but to say I'm listening and reading, thanks.

[–]jkfinn 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The only evidence I can offer here is from Feminist Current and r/GC. There's no doubt that anti-Islam and Islam bashing in the name of feminism is/was allowed to reign on these two sites. I was heavily down voted three times on r/GC for defending Islam in terms of western (the US esp) domination and racism, and was not upvoted at all for defending it similarly at Feminist Current (there was no down voting at the time I was active there). And, of course, I made it clear that I was adamantly opposed to the sexism inherent in Islam (as in Christianity). I want to also say that I had about 12 topics I ceased to address at r/GC because of down voting, and the first one I put on my list was Islam. Whenever i saw this word in a thread, I immediately passed on to the next thread.

[–]DifferentAirGC 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But does the world really need religions created by sexist men centuries ago? Specially since said religions (yes, including Christianism) are full of corruption, rape and power abuse? Religion is not an inherent trait. For example, christians are only christians because their parents raised them that way, had them been raised in a non-religious family they wouldn't notice any difference and wouldn't care about Jesus. Not being taught a religion doesn't cause suffering.

[–]Irascible-harpy 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So you got "too tired" to respond to ANY of the countless requests for details and context for your post and now you want to pick specific rewritten quotes out of context and pretend you're replying to the barrage of feedback you got? Are you kidding me?