I shame the matriarchy

So Lya Kahlo brought up an interesting point in the comments of this post at I Blame the Patriarchy, to wit:

Is it just my imagination or does antiprincess spend an inordinate amount of time inventing reasons to not like Twisty (and pretty much all radical feminists)?

And I think she's right about this at least - I do spend a lot of bandwidth, here and at other places, listing all the reasons why Twisty makes me lose my shit on a regular basis. I could write a book. But it means that I'm a lot more REactive than PROactive - and how can that be healthy? That's really something to examine and consider, with respect to my blogging and also with respect to the rest of my life.

so, much respect for Lya today. Your comment really helped me, regardless of how we may feel about each other personally.

you know, which leads me to this - as far as "pretty much all radical feminists" - well, I'm not at all sure that's true. The problem is, perversely, that I like most of them an awful lot. I'm full of respect and admiration for many of those who use that label to describe themselves. They do a lot of hard work, and have a sincerity and zeal borne out of a true and legitimate desire to do good, and if nothing else that kind of dedication to an idea is really remarkably admirable.

But there are places where I just think that the radical feminist arithmetic could use some checking. That's all. If I ran around all loud-n-proud saying that two plus two make five, or three point eight, or that it didn't matter because numbers is the debbil anyway, I'd want someone to tap me on the shoulder and straighten me out. I feel that when I try to do this, I get treated like someone's bratty little brother - and in no way do I feel like I deserve that.

I have marched with you, struggled with you, yelled with you, poured out my pockets with you - all so that you can ignore me and call me names when I try to contribute to the conversation? seriously, what's up with that?

I think the illusion that I dislike pretty much all radical feminists may be caused by the fact that I seldom speak up in agreement, when I agree. Maybe I should start doing that, adding to whatever Greek chorus I come upon in my travels through the blogosphere. Maybe that would help.

But on those points where I do disagree, where I feel like logic falls short, or effort is counterproductive, or simply where I feel like representing a different experience would enrich the conversation - I feel like I should speak up. It is healthy to do so - healthy for me, healthy for others, healthy for The Movement, such as exists.