All Time Low: Transphobic, Womanist-Musings Post-Swiper Accuses Other People of Post-Swiping - When Will We Start Pooling Our Experience?

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“The experts of psychology, sociology, economics, biology, even the new feminism experts, are still engaged in the old battles, of women versus men. The new questions that need to be asked - and with them, the new structures for the new struggle - can only come from pooling our experience…”

Betty Friedan, from ‘The Second Stage.’ Betty Friedan was also the author of ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Update: The permanent link web address for this page is here:

http://bit.ly/post_swiper

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First of all, before I begin, let me make it clear to readers unfamiliar with the original article (found here: http://bit.ly/linkbias ) that Renee at Womanist Musings is not a post Swiper. She is an awesome blogger who I highly recommend who has posted an article to her website for me and I highly recommend you check out her super-awesome website and blog.

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Dear Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff,

I titled this article "Womanist-Musings Post-Swiper Accuses other People of being a Post-Swiper" because you and/or your group swiped a post from the Womanist-Musings website and yet you make an accusation on your blog, structured in the 'women versus men' method, that this website is a Post-Swiper in your latest blog post despite the fact that you left not one, but two, thank you comments (one found here) on our blog on a prior blog post of mine for posting the current article that you are speaking about that you allege was 'post swiped.' This is what we call a head-spinning situation. You causing drama for the sake of drama.

Several times before writing this follow up article, during it and afterwards I wondered if it is worth it to address the Infighting and I have decided, Yes it is, because this example is like a case study in the old 'women versus men' infighting within the feminist blogosphere.

I chose the title because you titled your recent blog post 'Post-Swiping' and had a lot of negative words to say.

Before I get into the details of that I want to start off, as I left off in my last original article (as I try to do for all people), trying to accentuate the positive and put aside the negative.

First, I received the Thank you for the words of thanks that you posted to the comment section of one of my past articles found here.


Your kind words of thanks were appreciated and make all the work and the drama (ironically, some of which you are now causing) worth it.

Great article you wrote. Very well researched. I tried to leave a comment asking you how you wanted to be credited but you closed the comments off on the article. So I linked to your website with admin (as you placed it on your website) and even used your name in the podcast and even mentioned your writing in Off Our Backs in the podcast and then encouraged people to visit your website and then you still attack me with your blog post.

The truth of the matter is I was reluctant to include the photos (but I did, as the other person who posted your article did not) because when you posted a photo of a world famous social justice activist and feminist without crediting the photographer, as you did, that is called thievery or, in your words, 'photo swiping' when done without attribution as you have done several times throughout your website, but I did not want to change your article, or insult you, so if I am guilty of anything it is that I cam guilty of facilitating your photo swiping without attribution to the photographer. I just hope it wasn't a female photographer, or a person of color (which is likely given that area of the world) female photographer because then you would indeed be guilty of the colonizing of the feminist blogosphere as you accuse others.

The morale = no one is perfect.

So, now we get to to see if you are willing to give attribution to others (rather than simply photos without attribution) the way that you made a point to attack others on your blog. I took a quick look on Google Images for the name 'Vandana Shiva' and I only had to look through two pages before finding the photo that you photo swiped without attribution. The photo was part of the Press Release package for a film so the website had permission to use it, but you did not. Therefore you should give attribution to that website, it is here:

http://www.wholesomegoodness.org/pressroom.html

Their 'about page states that they accept tax-deductable donations so I'm guessing that you took the picture from a not-for-profit group, and it is clear it was a production still from their award winning movie. I know enough about Vandana Shiva - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva > that I don't think she would be happy about your transphobic activities and transphobic reputation and I don't think she'd necessarily want her photo as part of your blog but I encourage you to contact her and find out.

[Side Note to Readers: Check this website, http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2/2009/02/26/the-colonizing-of-the-feminist-blogosphere-why-feminists-should-have-boycotted-fem-20 - to see if womenspace website and blog gave proper attribution to the Wholesome Goodness website even after this article]

My guess is that you will not give proper attribution. That is the way real stubborn hypocrisy works. The Good news is that I sent the folks an email today asking is it OK that the photo is used on this website so we do not continue on the legacy of stealing photos without attribution the way you do because it only promotes the worse kind of digital colonialism that you seem to promote despite accusing others of it.

Update:

[After publishing this article on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 it was on Thursday March 26th, 2009 that I heard back from the folks at Wholesome goodness and they said they would "prefer if you give credit or a link." Don't worry, we didn't use your name, we just mentioned an anonymous blogger so that you have the chance to do the ethical thing and contact them yourself. So we will give credit and a link on our website under that photo...so the question to you Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, womensspace blogger... are you going to give them credit or even a link as attribution? Or will you continue with your digital colnialism of taking the work and photo of others without attribution... despite the fact that you accuse others of it?

And I did not, and would not include the Burger King logo on this website (in an article condemning multinational corporate ads) for numerous obvious reasons that I hope I don't have to explain because again, it would be hard to say without insulting you. I recommend you read the book titled 'No Logos' by Naomi Klein to fully understand it.

Incidents like this is why persons of color and Black feminists don't want to be a part of the feminist blogosphere. Because no matter what we do, no matter how much solidarity, no matter how many links, no matter how many compliments... still people find reason to attack us and we are attacked...and then they turn around and say 'who me, racist? Colonial? NoooOOOOoooooo.'

This whole attack is something I did not expect from you who wrote:

"And instead of fighting these guys, nobody is paying attention, instead, feminist bloggers are fighting one another!"

And you here you are, attacking me and starting fights at the first chance you get.

If you want me to delete the entire article of yours, I'll be happy to do it. The only time I ever use someone's article is when at least one or all of the below situations are in place:

a. When it is submitted to this blog for posting as many guest bloggers have done

b. when it has creative commons license, as yours had.

v. When I credit them and link to them as I used the exact link and the exact name on your article that you had on your own article.

How was I supposed to know that it is not the exact link that you preferred? And still I am attacked. I am just so tired of fighting and being attacked. Just give me the word and I will indeed take this article off my website.

I posted my article at 12:10am on Tuesday, went to bed, and then did work and finished the podcast around 1:30pm on Tuesday and then you posted your thank you regarding the article here and then you left a comment at 2:21pm. I saw your comment on this blog at 5:10pm. So you gave me less than 3 hours to make the URL changes that you requested before going on the war path and posting blog attacks?

Wow.

I wasn't sure if you wanted to be known as 'Heart' or 'admin' because I originally saw the article on a different website with 'admin' (which I kept the link as you had it) and then I also saw it on your website (at the link you provided on website) with 'by admin' so I wasn't sure. I personlly thought maybe you were going by admin because you din't want to use your real name as is very common with many bloggers (if for no other reason so that there name doesn't come up when Googled by the friends, family, employers and enemies). I also included a bunch of links to your website throughout the article and then I even added more links to your other articles.

I did indeed credit the name Heart in the podcast and mentioned the women's space website in the podcast Mp3.

But none of that was enough to stop an attack by you on your blog.

Nevethless, I'm very glad you spoke up about the whole issue and researched it so thoroughly. The more I learn about it, the worse it becomes.

Do you have any interest in being part of the interview of recorded teleconference about this?

I also noticed the 'Radical Feminist Carnival' tab at the top of your website...so I've be interested in knowing your thoughts about the sexist, “transphobic screed” (as Renee of Womanist Musings calls it) that many people in the Radical Feminist Carnival support as made very evident on the 352+ comment blog posts at womanist musings found at the below link titled 'radical feminists'

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/radical-feminism.html

Oh, and here is a better article that Renee of Womanist musings wrote:

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/radfem-carnival.html

Here is how here the article starts off:

“It was brought to my attention that a post of mine has appeared in the latest Radfem carnival. I was alerted yesterday morning via twitter. Much to my horror, when I went to check for myself, it was buried in the middle of their usual transphobic screed. In all honesty I cannot remember submitting to the carnival. Even if I did submit a post, the kind of disgusting trans hatred that these women adhere to is something that I could never support.”

And when you click on 'Radfem carnival' (as I just did) this is what it states at the top:

“Many thanks to all the contributers with a special thank you to Carnival organiser, Heart, at Womensspace.”

That is you, Heart, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, and your website, womensspace.

Isn't that strange? So your group took Renee's article, without her being able to remember giving it to you,... and she was so upset about it, that she thoroughly cursed you out about it in numerous blogs posts on her very high traffic blog... and yet here you are attacking me because I posted your article with numerous links to you, with credit to you in my article and podcast, with numerous compliments to you, and received a thanks from you... and you are upset and attacked me in a blog post because... I didn't link to the proper URL. Unbelievable.

Radfem took the work of a woman of color blogger and placed it on a website that the women of color feminists blogger outspokenly detests in every way, manner and form and yet you accuse others of digital colonialism?

Thats enough hypocrisy to make a person's head spin right off!

Much like Renee, I really don't like blog carnivals that are Transphobic, homophobic hypocrites, who treat LGBTQI feminists as less than equals, but no one, including you, or I, is perfect.

I also agree 100% with Renee when she states "the kind of disgusting trans hatred that these women adhere to is something that I could never support.”

I don't support your hatred or your transphobia or any of your LGBTQI bias, yet I would be very interested in doing a recorded teleconference interview for use as an unedited podcast/online radio show with several of your members who also detest Transphobia. After reading the 352+ comments on the 'Radical Feminism' article I am aware that there are several admirable members of the Radical Feminism crew who also do not support the Transphobia, despite the fact that it seems to be very common within the Radical Feminism mindset. That way, if you really believe that you are not the transphobic, hate-spreading individual that so many people have described you and your RadFem Carnival as being... you can clear your own name for everyone to hear.

Renee thoroughly cursed your Radfem carnival out, with no apologies about it...as a matter of fact she immediately wrote another awesome article thoroughly describing why she had to thoroughly curse out various members of the Radfem carnival and described why various words she chose to use were not sexist when coming from a woman.

I haven't cursed you out and have no intention of doing so.

But if we're going to fight like children and accuse each other of the greater evils and hypocrisy and make each other look as stupid as possible we might as well go all the way so that way when Right wing people, and anti-feminist people and multinational corporate supporters sit back and laugh at us at least we know we gave them a really good show while the earth is being flushed down the drain and my mother, sisters, aunts, grandmom remain victims of an institutionalized patriarchal system while we as feminist find faults with each other.

My sister died in horrible pain when her heart stopped on a hospital operating room table due to Lupus, but you know what? Maybe we should keep fighting one another until my other two sisters die from this patriarchal system that denies adequate healthcare...and then my mom dies..and then all other women of color until we are all back in the chains of slavery. Then maybe it will be a good time to stop fighting one another and work together?

I'd definitely like to keep this issue of digital colonialism at the front of people's mind because otherwise it will only get worse.

Still, If you want your article deleted from this website let me know and I will do it in a second just let me know.

Let me repeat that for everyone to hear:

Still, If you want your article deleted from this website let me know and I will do it in a second just let me know.

Who knows, maybe you're attacking me, a Black male feminist, because choosing to...

'launch attacks on feminists...is always a good way to drive up hits and linkage”

....for your website. That quote is from your article, by the way.

It is clear you were thankful and appreciative for the article being posted.

Here is your first comment on this blog at
on March 24, 2009 at 1:41 PM....

Heart said...

Thanks for circulating my blog post, "Feminists Should Have Boycotted Fem 2.0...

Thanks.
Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff
Women's Space

And your second comment with Thanks and suggested changes in the article configuration was
on March 24, 2009 at 2:21 PM....

So I would think that if you were upset youwould have at least waited for me to reply to your comment or send me an email. This group blog and my personal podcast are one of the few that I know of that have a 'contact' link at the top and in the case of my podcast, I also have a 24 hour telephone number at the top and my email address so if you wanted to contact me to make any requested changes you could have done so in any number of ways. But you didn't even though you told people you sent an email to me, which I did not receive and I honestly don't believe you did. I believe you chose to go on the War Path and that is hurtful.

You post multiple words of thanks on this blog for the article and then post nothing but 100% words of hatefulness and attack on your blog. Why not even say one kind word on your blog? That is what my Granny often described as:

Ruthless Twofacedness

Personally, I'm tired of the Drama. I've worked my entire life as a Feminist and the idea of having my reputation dragged through the mud simply because I'm a Black or because I'm a male (yes you did bring up the 'male' issue on your post) feminist actually trying to support the positive work you do is too much. Again, I want people to read the article about how the Good Ole' Girl's Network and how Frederick Douglas, a Black male feminist gave everything to the Feminist movement and received a back stab from fellow feminists based on his race and based on being a male. I've been pulling a lot of knives out of my back and still I think working for a better world that gets ride of patriarchy is worth it.

Oh, and for those who think that I, as a person of color feminist, describing the treachery within the progressive social media world and the feminist blogosphere as 'Back Stabbing' is 'too harsh' then perhaps you should read Renee's beautiful and eloquently description of this type of race-based treachery in her blog post titled "Backstabbing Feminism."

This is a very small blog just starting out hoping to get more guest blog posts from people and the idea of you trying to drag our name through the mud is hurtful.

Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, I hope things work out for you.

Love for the people,

-T

“After fifteen years of the women’s movement, the gap between women’s earnings and men’s is greater than ever, women earning on the average only fifty-nine cents to every dollar men earn, the average male high school drop-out today earning $1,600 more a year than female college graduates.”

“We must take a fresh look at work and the demands made by corporations, schools and government, and recognize the possibilities of flextime, part-time, job-sharing, and split-shift work and education. We must think in terms of restructuring the home itself, so that it can be made more suitable to the demands and diversity of our new families.”

“I believe that we have to… move into the second stage… …the second stage involves coming to terms with the family - new terms with love and with work. The second stage may not even be a woman’s movement. Men may be at the cutting edge of the second stage. The second stage has to transcend the battle for equal power in institutions. The second stage will restructure institutions and transform the nature of power itself.”

“For there is a real backlash against the equality and the personhood of women - in American, as in Islam and the Vatican. Dangerous reactionary forces are turning women back to the old dependence, silencing women’s new voice …in ways we do not clearly understand. In the name of the family, they would destroy the new equality that gives the family strength to resist dehumanizing forces that are emerging in the seeming impotence of capitalist America, in the resurgence of fundamentalist religion, in neofascism and in autocratic communism, and in the chaos of the Third World. We must ask new questions or we could lose in the economic and emotional turbulence, the measure of equality that is essential to strengthen human life - and the future of the family. The first stage, the woman’s movement, was fought within, and against, and defined by that old structure of unequal, polarized male and female sex roles.”

“The experts of psychology, sociology, economics, biology, even the new feminism experts, are still engaged in the old battles, of women versus men. The new questions that need to be asked - and with them, the new structures for the new struggle - can only come from pooling our experience…”

- The above quote is from Betty Friedan, from ‘The Second Stage.’ Betty Friedan was also the author of ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Wikipedia describes Betty Friedan as:

Betty Naomi Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist activist and writer, best known for starting the "second wave of the Women's Movement" through the writing of her book The Feminine Mystique in 1963, which attacked the 1950s notion, spread through society by advertising and strict enforcement of traditional gender roles, that women could only find fulfillment in child bearing, doing housework, and serving husbands.[1] The book's success, and the reaction from dissatisfied middle class women, led to the launching of consciousness-raising groups among women and the formation of grassroots women's groups. Friedan joined other leading feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bella Abzug, and Myrlie Evers-Williams in founding the National Women's Political Caucus

.