How many of you have left an organization because of how women were treated?

[noamnety]

I am pondering my commitment to what I thought was one of the best activist groups around, after publicly being referred to on their listserve as a "little bitch" - ironic, given my recent post on how women activists are silenced.

I keep going back and forth here, trying to decide if I'm willing to follow a bunch of Imus's into the streets to end the war.

[bliss_eternal]

1. Honestly...

...I can think of a lot of places I WISH I had left sooner than I did, based on the way I was treated.

But yes, I have walked away from situations, jobs, people, places, etc. (in my own time) because of the way I, or others were treated.

If you look inside yourself and believe that you will think less of yourself for standing with them, walk away.

I don't believe I would feel good about hanging out with those that speak disrespectfully of me, the way you said they did.

[VelmaD]

2. My first instinct is to say walk away...

And make sure the others in the organization understand why you're leaving.

Your other option...make noise about it within the group. Take the people who did it to task...publicly. Repeatedly if necessary.

The choice is yours...and I hope you know you can come here to talk about it either way and we'll support you.

[noamnety]

3. At the moment, I'm making a hell of a lot of noise about it

but it sure is pissing me off that I have to. Ugh.

I did get a hell of a great note though from the person who I had the original complaint against. Now it's just an issue with all the backslappers (about half the people who spoke out) who were defending men's right to be sexist and/or racist if that's what it takes to stop the war. :eyes:

[VelmaD]

4. How exactly...

are they connecting being sexist or racist to stopping the war? *confused look* That's seriously fucked up. Then again, I suppose it's not a surprise...we've seen some pretty fucked up and tortured explanations around here over the years about why it's ok for men to be sexist. Nothing should surprise me any more.

[noamnety]

5. Oh, you know, the usual

It's petty and PC and overly sensitive to demand that our antiwar speeches don't use derogatory hate speech and put down women.

[Warpy]

7. Remember the 60s?

"Reducing me to a body part is not going to compensate for your limp dick."

[noamnety]

10. That's quite a bit tamer

than how I wanted to respond to them. :D

[Warpy]

6. Mine, too, but not before I let 'em have it

and tell them exactly why I'm leaving and how much success they can expect with whatever they're doing if they exclude half the human race from it at the outset. I also describe their own shortcomings and blind spots in exquisite detail, and I am capable of using words that hit harder than any male fist ever could.

I especially dissect the ones who have agreed with the assholes by their silence.

I've generally left them better than I found them, as women who join later tell me. By the time I get that angry, though, I'm not capable of going back.

[noamnety]

9. One woman who's higher up than me

did thank me for saying something. And then one of the angrymen attacked her on an issue that occurred years ago, message being I guess that if you stand up in support of this feminist crap, I'll go after you as well, on whatever basis I can. Yikes.

But since my original post, things have gotten a little better - a number of people have come forward to say "um, I didn't want to add to the flame war, but you know, maybe we shouldn't use derogatory language toward women, now that I think about it."

oy.

Laugh? Cry?

[ThomCat]

8. Back when I was able to activist work

I was too stuborn to leave over how anyone was treated. I raised hell and made myself pretty damned unpopular by calling out racism, sexism and homophobia.

I didn't manage to change things anywhere, but I prevented the bigots from remaining comfortable or complacent. I even drove a few of them out of positions of authority. They didn't profit from their bigotry when I could do anything about it. So I count that as a success.

I've been present when people left over sexism, racism and homophobia. I've been present when every single asian member of one organization marched out as a group. Every single time the result in the organization has been, not "what did we do to cause that," but "well, they're just griping so we don't want them here anyway."