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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 05:21 PM
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 05:46 PM
Response to Original message
1. Silence can be powerful. It can be deafening. It can be mind shattering.
Riddle me this.


What would happen if...?

Lysistrata with a silent twist.

Can we do it? Are we "legion" enough? Are you willing? Are you able? For a day, a week? Would it work? Would you try?

What would happen if voices went suddenly silent? Would anyone notice the deafening silence?



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noamnety Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 06:43 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Nobody would notice.
If they did, there might be some slight relief or satisfaction, cause being confronted over your bigotry is a whole lot less pleasant than being allowed to do what you want in peace.

That's part of the whole Larry Flynt fantasy creation - a woman without vocal chords - and part of his appeal to men, that ability to publicly fight for "freedom of speech" while simultaneously threatening the women who use it.

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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 06:56 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Hey, lwfern.
I wonder if they'd notice or not. I was looking around the boards and I notice the number of women generated threads and posts.

Of course, another tact is to post lots of "." posts with no actual words within them in order to display the number of posters participating. Maybe using nothing more than something along the lines of the image I posted or the avatar I just put on my posts.

Anyway, just rebellious thoughts I'm having after yet another women-focused thread being silenced after first every anti-woman poster was allowed to pile on.

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ismnotwasm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:27 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Even silence would be derided
Even an image would be taken as a personal affront, an attack, or for the wikipedia-only educated (don't get me wrong, I love wiki and I'm not the best educated person in the world) "misandry" (I see them use that word like they've proved something)

What seems to be going on is a full scale fight or flight attack. Stark fear of the fall of patriarchy. Ha. Communication on the internet comes slowly to me, but I'm getting better. I have a tendency to want to assess people. Some of the ones who attack any women's topic in the comforting anonymity of the on-line community, it's becoming quite clear to me, have problems, perhaps severe. I'm not saying that to be mean, and I'm not a psychologist, but the repeat offenders are quite frankly weird to me.

That doesn't excuse them and it doesn't excuse the rest.
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:50 PM
Response to Reply #4
9. Any more than how we are derided now?
We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Maybe there's a way to take that and work it into something that carries a message.

I agree with all you've said about the severe problems you and I have seen in the words and tenor of posts by some posters. I am not a psychologist, either. But it's amazing what one can "get" from another persons posts; their tone and wording.

Anyway, I think you're heading off to work and I thank you for replying to my, rather weird, thread.

:hi:

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ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:34 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. I think that would be self-defeating.
We would not be missed, and it would just give the sexist perspective free reign. The mods certainly wouldn't restrain the sexism.
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ismnotwasm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:40 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. By the way Thomcat
You be kicking some butt. I gotta run to work --but take a appreciation hug my friend.
:hug: :loveya:
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ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:41 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Thank you.
I'm trying. :)
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:47 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Hi ThomCat.
As I said, some ideas I'm playing with.

We recently watched "Wedding Wars" I think is the title. A gay man, who happened to be the brother of a non-gay man who wrote an anti-gay speech for a powerful politician (did you follow all that?), decides to go on strike. Many across the country follow suit, gays, non-gays, women and men. It's a funny piece with a serious message.

People sometimes forget how loud silence is and how noticeable absence can be.

Would it give the sexist perspective any more of a free reign than it has had to this point?

Just musings in a feminist mind full of anger and sadness.

Thank you, btw, for your posts and the valuable insight you offer.

If I may be so bold... :hug:

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ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:53 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Thank you.
:hug:

I agree that in intimate or direct-contact environments silence is amazingly powerful. Being present but silent is gives you a great presence.

But in an indirect medium, like an online forum, our only power is based on speaking. If we are silent then we're not here. It would be as if we were tombstoned, voluntarily. People would move on without us and forget we had ever been here.
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. That was why I had another thought as presented in #4 above
in response to lwfern.

There were an amazing number of feminists, women and men, who came out in response to the "Why we need radical feminists" thread. I think there are more here than are letting on. I wonder, would it be enough that the boards would slow down as though it were a Friday night around 2am (pick your favorite time zone).

As I said, these are mostly the postings of what's traveling through my head as I attempt to devise a way to let many here know that we exist in numbers larger than they think.

Once an activist, always an activist, I guess.

:D

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ThomCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 08:01 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. It would be worth a try
but I don't know that people would notice or care about the slow down.

Certainly, we'd have to find a way to let people know the cause of the slowdown or it does us no good. People can imagine a hundred explanations, and none of those might be us.
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 08:39 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. Oh, yeah. It'd have to be organized, publicized and
have attention brought to it.

In the meantime, or until, or instead, I'll keep my little avatar. :D

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CrispyQ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 11:19 AM
Response to Reply #11
22. You are right -- the boards move so fast.
I am trying to find a way to filter DU down to something manageable in the time I have. I miss a ton of good stuff sorting through the clutter. I've taken to focusing on the Greatest and the speciality forums. Even then, I am required to do some work at my job. ;)

In the few weeks I've visited this forum I've had a few old ideas challenged & guess what? They needed challenging!
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 08:38 PM
Response to Original message
13. Hey, you read my mind. I've been looking for that quote all week.
Thanks.
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 08:40 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. You're welcome. You mean the Bombeck quote?
Glad to help.

:D

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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 12:13 AM
Response to Reply #15
18. Yeah.
I've been digging through files all week.
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 08:52 AM
Response to Reply #18
21. A link for you.
I just remembered the quote in my sig line is an image form and so not easy to copy and paste.

Here's a link http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/1639 to the quote that is copy-able and paste-able.

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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 09:00 PM
Response to Original message
16. Shameful...
the state of DU... the state of our country... the world...

I imagine a lush, beautiful planet somewhere out there in the universe, with 2 moons and clean air and water... where words like patriarchy and slavery and violence and pain don't even exist...

It never ceases to amaze me - not just that life as we know it exists, but that so few are willing to fight back against it, even when they are made aware.

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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-21-07 09:08 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. I like the world you imagine.
I sometimes wonder if that was the world "intended" for us and we managed to go so horribly wrong somehow, somewhere in time.

Have you read any of Riane Eisler's books? She theorizes times and places during which we may have gone "off-track".

Well, rather than keeping silent, I've been posting much more today than is normal for me. THAT in itself, should make some on this board a bit unhappy. :evilgrin:

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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 08:29 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. Sounds like I'm off to Amazon :D.
Sounds like something I must read :).
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 08:46 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. She has several. I'd recommend you start with her first...
"The Chalice and the Blade". It sort of sets the stage for those that follow.

She also talks about authoritarianism, what she calls dominator society versus partnership society. That leads to one of her next books "The Partnership Way".

Regardless of where you start, I hope you enjoy her work. They give a perspective we don't see much in more politically oriented works.

:D

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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 11:59 AM
Response to Reply #20
24. I ordered that one a little while ago :D.
Yaaay!
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CrispyQ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 11:24 AM
Response to Reply #16
23. Years ago I dated a man who turned me onto science fiction.
First contact was a favorite topic to discuss. I was young & naive & laughed when he stated, "We will not find a species more savage than our own."
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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-22-07 12:00 PM
Response to Reply #23
25. I think the lure of scifi/scifantasy for me is that
you can see possibilities that exist outside of our reality, kwim? I think we all have a tendency to think we're sort of stuck with the house we've built - and that's really not the case.
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