Exulansic And The CAIS Of The Phantom Censor

Recently, the Gender Critical community was rocked by the sudden removal of a prominent voice from a prominent platform.

Stalker

Can’t you just leave us alone??

“I do plan to keep making this content, because it’s more important now than ever to keep speaking out.” 

The Case Against The Case Against CAIS

Exulansic made her well-considered views known regarding whether individuals born with the anomaly of sexual development known as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome should be counted as women. There was some passionate disagreement, but she stood her ground and even won over a few people.

Debate sputtered when a newcomer to the fray stepped in and dragged it to a grinding halt – Someone who had to make sure everyone knew the Intersex Truth.

His response video makes up fifty percent of the content on Intersex Truther’s brand-new channel. Blowing through the studies Exulansic cited with, “Gish gallop!” guarantees him a spot in the Mansplaining Hall of Fame. Still insecure in his infamy, he also commissioned a rap song calling her a bigot. And an unflattering caricature. Just normal Alpha Male stuff, you know.

Exulansic responded promptly with an analysis of the caricature, tracing echoes of classic anti-Semitic propaganda. YouTube shut her down a few hours later, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Personal Bias And Image Management

Don’t worry, I’m not going to offer my personal opinion on the intersex debacle. I believe it’s a distraction that’s taken time and airspace away from our real fight. It adds nothing to the immediate debate surrounding women’s rights, and has the Gender Critical community taking sides over something irrelevant to most of us. It has served as cover for the sabotage of our movement, and I am not going to add fuel to the pyre in the form of my two cents.

Private Letter

My personal feelings are beside the point!

I won’t be naming the highest-profile person involved, either. Whether you agree he has the kind of clout to take down entire channels, this person has absolutely zero flotsam online. None. I’ve been researching all kinds of people for these posts for years, and everyone over 30 with any clout has some random articles from ten years ago. A couple awkward photographs. At least one snarky, dissenting op-ed.

Not this guy – I searched through eleven pages of Google results. Make of this what you will, but I’ll be referring to him as Benedict Arnold in the hopes of avoiding digital oblivion.

But the basis for Exulansic’s video – The one that triggered Intersex Truther and sparked the whole chain of events – was a Benedict Arnold interview featuring an intersex individual.

He threw some strong words at anyone stepping up to support Exulansic, and she has said she felt threatened with cancelation. But he’s also been known to sling slurs, then laugh off anyone reacting seriously. Karen Davis over at You’re Kidding, Right? has provided receipts for his free-wheeling language. However interesting his interview choices, I don’t think Old Benny is a friend to women’s liberation.

But I don’t think he’s responsible for the demise of Ex’s channel. For one thing, he’s interviewed her more than once and they seemed to get along. Karen Davis is a big proponent of this idea but, if Benedict could do such a thing, seems to me she would have been first in line during the Great Whore Debacle of Summer 2021. Mr. Arnold seems to roll on from our criticism just fine.

Rise Of The Machines

YouTube, on the other hand, will censor certain words without notifying anyone not to use them. One of my first videos – A takedown of medical professionals attempting to discuss the affect of COVID vaccines on menstrual cycles without saying the word ‘woman’ – was itself taken down. The V-word keyword has become common knowledge, but how many words do you suppose we don’t know about?

Chloroform

Some people are just ruthless!

The increased prominence of extreme right-wing groups has reminded us that anti-Semitism never really died, and I suspect YouTube (among others) has set up bots to squelch any mention of it outside official sources.

Ex is a rabble rouser, her channel ruffled many delicate feathers. Before her Patreon was also taken down, she told her patrons YouTube removed her for ‘inciting violence.’ I must have missed that bit listening to her caricature video while making dinner that night. But the invocation of anti-Jewish hatred – and actual Nazi propaganda – may have just been the massive final straw.

The case for a political hit job is compelling – Karen and Ex discussed it explicitly. Karen has stated many times she believes Benedict Arnold is responsible for the whole mess, and Exulansic supplied incriminating details. Cluniac makes his own argument for sabotage, pointing the finger at Intersex Truther. Both assume an organized team of trolls behind the scenes, and it’s not hard to imagine in our age of the Twitter Mob.

But it’s too easy to explain too much using only YouTube’s mindless self-interest. Association with Nazis is bad for market share, and my embarrassing depth of experience tells me this topic is essentially absent from the platform.

That Feeling Of Being Watched

But can so many intelligent women be seeing a phantom? Why does Exulansic’s cancelation feel so targeted?

The online world can be a tricky thing; Digital engineers have spent the past decade completely remaking the back end, meanwhile the interface remains largely unchanged. Your old friends look the same, but they’ve all defected to the other side. It sounded paranoid 20 years ago, but everything we do is tracked and logged in some massive mainframe… for some reason. Uses for this level of information and technology are limited only by the imagination.

More mundanely, the Trans Femme are extremely over-represented in tech. Even I have a former in-law who fits this trope perfectly. It’s not hard to believe they would rig their own platforms in their favor, just like they try to tilt everything else.

Vampires

Can we just get this over with, Gary?? You look absolutely ridiculous!

I’m not a programmer, but I know enough about computers to know I don’t know that much. Most of us don’t really know how all this shiny shit works, but we shouldn’t have to – Modern society encourages individuals to specialize, reaching new depths in a narrow field of focus. A high population ensures a cornucopia of topics in development. I don’t know how to fly an airplane, either, and I shouldn’t be expected to.

I may not be a pilot, but I can recognize a dangerous trajectory. Ignorance of flight protocol doesn’t mean I can’t see a crash coming.

Haters Gonna Hate

Just a few years ago, with #MeToo in full swing, even the passing thought that women were being targeted and censored for stating banal facts would have felt absurd. Now, we have Slightly Twisted Female and others pleading for the community not to fracture further, as we frantically hunt down the source of our anxiety.

Supporting Exulansic and anyone like her is important enough to venture into new platforms, but I worry about stretching ourselves too thin. I can hardly keep track of things as it is, and I don’t even have an Instagram!

Seems to me that any organization of any decent size is bound to have a mole. I’m not ruling out Benedict Arnold and his freaky-clean vibe, but I’m content to leave him to his trolling. Focusing on supporting those whose work I do admire and appreciate will help build momentum towards the liberation of women from the rule of men, and anyone who joins me is welcome.

Presenting a united front on this point is absolutely vital, because there does appear to be a guided effort to fracture and discredit Gender Criticism through stoking in-fighting and paranoia. Just like so many radical and leftist groups before us. But women know who we are.

And we know that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. But if they’re coming for us, let them find us hard at work.

 

How Feminism Fails

“Among the ‘strong-minded women’ who met to attend the convention was Amelia Bloomer – The lady who goes in for breeches and buncomb.”

Bird On A Wire

Sir, thou dost wound me mightily!

Dress historian Abby Cox quotes a catty article from 1853, describing feminists as women who subscribe to pants and nonsense – You know, that crazy stuff about women being full people who deserve rights.

“I didn’t actually wanna bring it up, because of some personal biases towards it. It gets brought up a lot when people talk about feminism and clothing in the 19th century, so [it was] kinda me being like, ‘Ugh!’ 

“I also just kinda hate the 1850s as an aesthetic period, so I’ve never really been interested in studying it.

“However, for this discussion, it is important. It was a brief moment in sartorial history. It happened in the United States, it was tied into women’s rights at the time. However, it was a failure.”

Learning from feminism’s failures will keep us from repeating the past. No one remembers the 1850s for the drastic shift in women’s attire. Women’s pants came almost 100 years later, modeled by movie stars during the Great Depression.

Abby’s flustered, but she tries to explain why Bloomers didn’t change Victorian fashion, “They were too contrarian. They were too shocking, and so people didn’t take them seriously.

“By not operating within a broader social acceptability, how can [they] make any sort of progress towards equality?” Dropping out doesn’t solve anything – Just ask your nearest Baby Boomer.

Mama Says

Well, my bottom line is doing just fine!

But in the 2021 hustle economy, everyone’s a salesman. We’ve learned to sell ourselves to college admissions boards, to employers, to potential clients and subscribers, and to each other. Branding is the name of the game, and Bloomers were terrible branding.

We can do better.

The Medium Becomes The Message

“I’ve been reading news articles from the 1850s, and what’s interesting is that when these newspapers are talking about Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony, and this reform movement, they don’t ever actually talk about their points – The messages that they stand for.

“What they talk about is what they’re wearing, specifically the Bloomer outfits with the tunics and the trousers. So, they’ve gotten attention, but it wasn’t the attention that they wanted. It wasn’t the attention that worked.

My heart ached for the sweet Aussie lady in my video this week, pleading for empathy from Katy Montgomery. She spoke from basic truths but stumbled defining her terms, and Katy’s fidgety obfuscation was a perfect example of the kind of willful misunderstanding we’re dealing with.

The kind of willful misunderstanding that broadcasts ulterior motives.

To actually make progress toward the liberation of female people from invisible cages, we gotta sell it: “Susan B. Anthony stopped wearing this outfit. It was distracting from the actual message and what she wanted to promote.” 

Flexibility of method is imperative in support of the message, because context is queen. We gotta know our position backwards and forwards, but we can’t assume that being right is going to be enough!

Mourning

But it’s not fair!

Style Over Fashion

When we come prepared, the debate is short – Bad behavior follows the exposure of logical inconsistency, and the reasonable party becomes readily apparent. 

This whole contrarian idea, it doesn’t work in this society – You have to fit in, and then make changes. This whole Bloomer thing is a perfect example of that. These clothes turned them into, for lack of a better term, a bit of a freak show.

Abby means this quite literally. She quotes the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 4 February, 1853: “During her stay in the Capitol, she called on a tailor and got measured for three pair of tight-fitting cassimere trowsers. The tape with which he took her dimensions is kept in a glass case, and exhibited to bachelors at a shilling a sight.” 

Nothing if not for your pleasure, right fellas? Gross.

Abby argues for practicality, “The original idea of creating the Bloomers could have come from this very genuine place, and I can see where, initially, getting the attention could be a viewed as maybe a good thing.

“But then, when they’re not making headway and people are not moving past their clothing, then the message of equality is lost. Susan B. Anthony made this realization, and she stopped wearing the outfit.

“She started wearing a red shawl, and she became known for that, that was how you recognized her.Ironically, it was Contrapoints who I heard say something about creating the taste with which you are to be enjoyed, something like that.

Refusing to accept the cover story we are fed is not enough. We must create our own context for our side of the human story. We can shift the angle by keeping our balance and refusing to be moved.

You Catch More Flies With Honey, Honey

“The Bloomers thing is something a lot of people like to hold onto because it’s this interesting thing, but I think it just doesn’t fit into the context of the female experience.The strongest forms of feminism grow from the seed of women nurturing ourselves, rather than the embers of our patriarchal trauma.

In Love

…Did you say something, Gary?

Abby tells us the story of the Pattle Sisters, Notorious for their artistic and eccentric friends. They wore clothing they created themselves that went against standards of the time.

“It wasn’t masculine clothing that they were wearing, they were just designing their own kind of scandalous dresses. And they pursued their own artistic and creative endeavors,” such as early fantasy photography.

As a bonus, she also explains away the bogeywoman of ‘White Feminism,’ apparently without realizing it –Their social position gave them the space to be this way. Historically, we see women in higher social positions having room to be more eccentric, and pursue progressive agendas. Once the upper classes accepted these ideals, acceptability would trickle down to the middle and lower classes.”

Today’s scandal is tomorrow’s old news.

Context Is Queen

Looking through the lens of Class is illuminating, but the lesson these stories teach us defies social hierarchies. It might be easier to shake things up using your social clout, but sometimes an idea just doesn’t fit.

Akhenaten was Pharaoh of Egypt when he launched his new monotheistic religion, but his ideas were buried after his death in 1334 BC.

Divers pulled the first computer from an Ancient Greek shipwreck, its devastated designer’s name long forgotten.

There are piles of good ideas whose time or place had not come, dooming them to history’s trash heap.

Into The Distance

And women are not ideas!

“Forty years later, we have split skirts for sport. It’s not like women didn’t wear bifurcated garments in the 19th century, it was the context of how they wore them that matters.”

Exactly. Feminism should be built in the context of women’s needs, not as a reaction to men.

Women Are Not Men

The Bloomers Revolution was undercut by the very notion that imitating men would bring freedom. We still seem to buy into the inherent assumption that women should be more masculine to be taken seriously. Many sacrifices have been made pursuing men’s vision of freedom, precious skills and knowledge wasted on a fundamentally flawed goal.

This brutal (and, again, seemingly willful?) oversight is not some historic relic. There are destructive consequences when the gaping holes in current feminist philosophy become doorways for those curious enough to go looking for them. Waiting on the other side are some pretty savvy right-wing weirdos, ready to validate whatever instinct is bothering you.

The Prattle Sisters’ fairy pictures are more fun than Suffragettes in their underwear – And they don’t force you to into awkward situations! The humanity of women is a basic truth, and it should be an easy sell.

Feminism should be piecing together women’s vision of freedom, but we have lost the thread in the hustle and bustle of the larger cultural argument a long time ago. Many of us aren’t even sure exactly what we’re fighting for, but we’ll know it when it’s gone.

Moms and Feminism Need Each Other

I think men convinced themselves women were just a little too stupid for all those centuries, so they wouldn’t have to face what they had done to us.

Pinned

Thanks for bringing me to this swell movie, Gary!

Exploiting a natural weakness to strip an intelligent, self-aware person of their individuality, and put them to work for the benefit of others – Well, that would be pretty evil. One might be tempted to empathize with such a person, to imagine what it’s like to let go of any thought of personal achievement.

To have no dreams, plans, or hobbies of your own. That’s a miserable existence for any mildly intelligent person, without some serious brainwashing.

But, then, those women were always told they’d never amount to much. Women’s Liberation came about after Enlightenment thinkers (Read: Men) decided an educated mother was a better mother. Suddenly young women got to dream, but only for a few years. Marriage was still the only serious goal.

My generation? We were told we could Have It All – A kickass career, a loving husband, smart kids, a beautiful home and a tight ass – We just had to work a little harder. Never mind that at least two of these are full-time jobs. You’re gonna need at least two jobs to keep that house, anyway…

My daughters are being told that womanhood is a feeling.

The dirty truth, of course, is that a woman birthed every person on Earth. Many of them died in the process. Most of them bear physical scars, and psychological ones are common. All of them were extremely uncomfortable or seriously inconvenienced at least once.

All so humanity could carry on. A job so vital, no able-bodied woman is truly eligible for anything else!

If Only

Sorry, I can’t learn to fly today, I have too much work to do!

But to keep us all there, we had to be held down. Mothers are simultaneously the most important and the least important people in the world. Both a precious resource and totally ordinary, whichever undermines us more effectively.

And it doesn’t really matter, because we don’t have much to say. We’re too busy juggling hats. When women do speak, it’s seldom as A Mother – We have been taught not to identify with that aspect of ourselves, or risk being disqualified from life.

Ironic, since mothers give life.

This is our biggest mistake – Motherhood is both our greatest power and our moment of weakness. The modern, rational mind isn’t interested in mystical contradictions, but we ignore this at our peril.

And children are not just babies. That moment of weakness is followed by at least a decade of preoccupation. Of living two lives simultaneously. Of knowing that, when that cry goes up, your feet better hit the floor because you’re the one on-call 24/7.

Of missed deadlines and internal conflict. Of dumping energy into running two minds – Mommy and Boss Bitch. There’s not as much overlap as you might think.

And moms will never unite and rise up, because we don’t see ourselves as a group. To stand up and be counted is to admit we ought to be at home. And women will never be free.

We may be freed from motherhood, as artificial wombs become a reality. But if freedom hinges on giving up mothering, we will have paid with a precious piece of ourselves. We will have admitted that being free means being like men.

With the majority of women isolated, the only route to liberation will continue to be rejection of men altogether. Straight women cast as sleeping with the enemy, rather than those with the most at stake in the battle of the sexes.

Each of us sits in a corner of her kitchen wiping lonely tears, because she doesn’t know she is legion. We struggle to be Secretary and Cheerleader and Sex Goddess and Boss Bitch and Housekeeper and Cook, never mind who we are!

Vacation

When does my vacation start?

We grope for the support no one can give us. The support that should be there – The network of mothers that raised our ancestors for thousands of years. 

The network that has been destroyed by centuries of putting women In Our Place – A case of slander so intense, the insecurity driving it is obvious.

Men of influence fear women’s power because their precious dominance depends on installing a worthy heir. We are the doorway to the future.  We are the biggest, most influential group in the world.

But not if we don’t know it.

Motherhood is the doorway all of us pass through, in one direction or the other. We don’t need to agree on parenting styles, we just need to stand up and be counted. The strength in our numbers will shake the world.

 

 

Life is Weird, But I’m Not Giving Up!

It’s been a quiet few weeks here at BrazenShe. I have a bunch of stuff in the pipeline, but I have been focusing my free time on a business venture.

Applied Learning

Running BrazenShe is rudimentary and fun. I write whatever I want, whenever I want. It’s great practice at crafting engaging pieces around maybe less-than-engaging issues.

I adore writing in my own voice. It’s just about the most fun a girl could have. I have developed and tweaked my style for almost 30 years. But I don’t exactly fit your boilerplate professional mold.

Img 2849

I’m good at what I’m good at!

This has made it somewhat difficult to translate my ever-increasing experience administrating my little corner of the web and slowly, fitfully building a personal brand that’s functional and true, into paying work.

It’s frustrating to have a valuable skillset and struggle to make it work for you. I was a Content Creator, Cultural Critic and Social Media Manager, working a cash register or a factory line.

Something isn’t right there.

Serendipity

I recently took what little spending money I have and threw it toward some comprehensive internet marketing training. Less than a month into it, my estranged father messaged me asking for contact info for my sister.

As if.

He said a friend of his needed someone to build them a website.

The timing was just too perfect. I had to jump for it in spite of myself and everything that’s happened.

Turned out the friend is actually an age-appropriate lady Old Dad was seriously involved with for several years around the turn of the century. She has since settled into the role of Family Friend. Also, it turns out, she’s actually pretty cool.

I never got to know her back then, I was in high school in a different state. But she’s a RadFem and loved the blog! She specializes in a wonderful method for getting rid of her clients’ debt, which she does at no cost to them.

All I have to do is get the site up and spread it around a little. She’s already been doing it for years and the clientele is essentially assured.

Accidental Christmas Networking

Last night was the Christmas Parade downtown.

Many of you may not be familiar with this concept. You read that right: A Christmas Parade, which is just about everything you might imagine it to be. My kids rode a float with the theme, ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and had pajamas on under their coats.

BrazenShe Antarctic Explorer

Smile through the cold!

I’m kidding, of course – I’m sure the coats came off as soon as they were out of sight. I know the 6th grader was sharing a blanket and getting smooches from a chubby girl with a loud mouth. Hmmmm….

I was networking too, as it turns out.

Really, I just love this old man who owns the house next to the parking lot where they all gather and mill around for two hours in the cold, among the exhaust of idling Diesel engines.

Hiding Beside the Ice Box

On the back deck, the guy who was my son’s Scout Leader his first year was giving out hot chocolate. I wandered inside, probably looking for a bathroom, and ran into Bill in the kitchen.

He recognized me from my job at a local Big Box home services store. He told me about his real estate holdings, and how he hired women to do painting and light carpentry topless.

His sharp eyes glinted as he explained, “Normally, you might wait all day for a delivery. But if the delivery guys heard there’s topless women, they show up at eight a.m.!”

His logic was solid. And he was giving out alcohol, so I was smiling and nodding to avoid going back outside. It’s amusing when someone tries to shock me, new acquaintances usually underestimate me.

Desolation Road

And this house is next to, among other things, a homeless shelter. Right there on Main Street, with the churches, library and shops.

Many of the residents have a high school education, and some don’t even have that. A lot of people around here are addicts (recovering or otherwise) or children of addicts, with few skills.

And the “good” jobs in the area want to pay you $9-$12 an hour to do manual labor for 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Yes, seven days a week. That’s every day. You’re pretty much guaranteed to burn out, if you don’t just bank all that pay (no time to spend it anyway!) and move the fuck away from here.

BrazenShe Get It Running

Gonna get this running somehow!

So, I can see the appeal, if I’m honest. Earn $25 an hour just for painting walls without a shirt? In context, it looks like a pretty good deal.

But that absurd demonstration of everything wrong with Capitalism was just Bill’s opening feint. Only the deep lines in his face give away his age, he is clever and nimble, as well as plain hilarious.

And, of course, he owns the building. I neglected to ask what the decorators of this nautical kitchen were wearing.

I walked the parade, had an asthma attack, and had to push the stroller (that’s right, I drink and interact with children. I’m an adult, not an asshole. And believe me, you are plenty sober after walking two miles!) over and sit it out on the curb.

Repeat Offender

The next year I left the baby at home. Bill was there in the kitchen with the liquor and we went back and forth over politics and history, sexual norms and possibilities for the future.

It does take more than rum to secure my company for two hours.

And, I admit, I hide from the crowd. The noise and the fumes, the endless shouting. It’s a guaranteed headache for me.

I promised Bill I’d see him again next year. Reveling a little in the feeling of finally having an accidental tradition to look forward to.

At some point this year, I was telling Hubs about it and he said he had met the old guy. That he was awesome

Knitting

It’s easy once you get the hang of it!

and one of the most interesting people he’d ever met.

Natural Fit

This made perfect sense. Bill could be my husband’s eccentric uncle. They are cut from similar cloth. This year his work hours made it possible for him to come meet my parade buddy.

It was so beautiful. I do enjoy having a partner I can present with a social opportunity, and he will capitalize on it.

Scout Leader and fam were there with hot chocolate. There was the business manager tending her little bonfire. In years past I have hidden from the experience. This year it was was a natural flow and I had a great time.

Scout Leader is a Web Manager by day. He told me he needs people to run social media campaigns. I’m supposed to call the office and set up lunch.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life is Weird

So far, I’ve gotten voicemail three times. But he lives around the corner.

Bill invited us back any evening we want. Jack insisted we need to make it more than an annual tradition.

Meanwhile, I’m patching jeans and selling my possessions for spending money.

Life is weird.