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Books should never be banned; they are the life blood of an educated population. Yet banning books, specifically feminist books in The Vancouver Woman’s library is a priority for the group called Gays Against Gentrification. This sort of violent repression is a heinous crime against the notions of the promotion of rational discourse, civilized protest, and of course women and their liberty.
So… friends, let’s understand that if you decide to start banning books that are integral to the movement you want to be a part of, it is a really big hint that you need to be in your own fucking movement. Colonizing Feminism for your particular set needs is going to fail; therefore it is time to take wing and make a movement that really can be all about you, because, Dear Transactivists/queer ideologues/men etc. :
Feminism. Is. Not. All. About. You.
Erasing ‘heretical’ female texts and thus female experience isn’t what is expected of feminists or their allies – is this your #notmytrans movement moment? (Too fucking late for that now, the jackboots are already in motion in Vancouver.) – yet this is the shit move (banning feminist books in a library for Women) undertaken by the queer group GAG. (see the entire petition on Facebook here). Are you feeling the inclusive love from this group that is dictating what females are allowed to read? I know I certainly am.
Let’s follow Charles Rae in his article on The Fifth Column as she describes the situation –
” This has got to be the first time a library was accused of violence. In an interesting display of the blooming neoliberal tendency to turn the world into their self-defined “safe space,” an organization ironically called GAG (Gays Against Gentrification) has demanded the new Vancouver Women’s Library (VWL) ban books written by women. Feminist Mary Lunetta already created a petition in favor of freedom of thought, urging VWL not to ban any books.
The trend of the neoliberal left controlling and condemning thoughts and words is widespread, and damages the movements they are attempting to protect. In this particular example as a case study, GAG came out of the gate demanding an outright ban of women’s books instead of asking for a respectful dialog. But then, what would this dialog consist of? What books (and therefore thoughts) are allowed? Anyone who champions freedom of thought wouldn’t entertain such a debate, and women shouldn’t be demanded to comply to such restrictions.”
Follow the link to the petition and sign it. Better yet, go to the Vancouver Women’s Library website and donate to them.
“These demands presume feminism, and women, are or should be completely monolithic. That everyone should already implicitly and entirely understand their ideal of accepted language and thought. If you don’t know or accept their concepts, there is no conversation to be had. You are a bigot, and you should get out (like the books).”
How about NO. The sifting sands of your ideology serve only to reinforce the patriarchal conception of gender. No one should take a knee to such a corrosive ideology which, essentially, is the antithesis of radical feminist theory and praxis.
“The reasoning presented in their introductory paragraph is because “the ongoing violence against trans women, sex workers, and IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour),” and as was quoted, “settler-colonial violence”. But what connection a Women’s Library has to the violence anyone anywhere faces remains to be seen, and is not detailed in their demands. As seasoned feminists know and center in their messaging, violence is perpetrated (in a large majority) by men. Furthermore, violent males aren’t taking their cues from women’s books and libraries.“
Harassing libraries is easy, fixing male-violence isn’t. Looks like its coming up harassing libraries all across the board, because actually being an ally and working with women is too fucking hard.
“GAG goes on to say that “TERF”s and “SWERF”s are complicit in violence and liken them to Nazis. How long have feminist been called Feminazis? Where was the Holocaust perpetrated by “cis white women”? One of the SWERFy books they want banned is called Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade by Janice Raymond. Doesn’t that sound more like a book which exposes violence rather than perpetrates it? I’m going to have to give it a read.”
Men do need access to prostituted women after all. Definitely should be a priority for Feminists amirite?
“GAG’s attempt to give proof of violence was to call out women who stand in opposition to the sex industry, and the particular exclusion of a male who identifies as a woman into a woman-only space. Their demands to silence women are ill-founded at best, harmful to the women’s movement at worst, and ironic on all accounts. GAG says they will not sit down with the women of the VWL for discussion because they claim they are being gaslit– as they call women nazis and violent without a shred of hard evidence of physical violence. “
Typical male supremacist behaviour. Sorry folks, you can’t identify out of being part of the oppressor class, and shit like the GAG list of demands to silence women only proves that point.
“Furthermore, the books and ideas they are looking to ban are ones that are still under debate within the feminist community, such as the example of the sex industry, and whether it should be abolished or embraced. These demands are an attempt to control this ongoing dialog, as well as the outcome of it. Any kind of a book ban would, without a doubt, hinder feminist movements. Feminists, all movements with all ideologies, would be strengthened by robust debate and spaces of free thought, something libraries stand for, and something women have been denied time and again since men took the mantle as head of the home and state.”
Yep. What Charles said. My conclusion would have had more swears in it, but Charles sums up the situation nicely.
Stay Tuned, I’ll have the feminist books to be banned list up in a jiff.
**UPDATE** – Queer Transactivst Group Vandalizes Library
**UPDATE** – Video of dudes and handmaidens at the Library.
A book-banning campaign by Gays Against Gentrification (GAG) is demanding the Vancouver Woman’s Library (VWL) remove and ban over twenty feminist books from their collection. These works — written by renowned women authors who have a long history of engaging in critical analysis against the oppression of women as class — focus on female exploitation, male supremacy, violence against women, reproductive freedom, lesbian identity and women’s health. As a matter of principle and in defense of freedom of speech and thought, no library should ever ban any books under any circumstance – especially ones written by and for women at the VWL. As authoritarianism takes deeper root throughout the world, it is more important than ever that any attempt to silence women in their struggle for liberation is resisted by all, at every moment. We urge VWL to keep these books on their shelves.
Source: Petition: Protect Feminist Books at Vancouver Women’s Library
Professional entertainers cannot be the end of your disatification with the system. Organize, agitate, and make a difference with people who share the same beliefs. It is the only way to change society.
If this isn’t okay, then why is the converse considered acceptable. Contemplate that, especially if you have problems believing that patriarchy exists or you have a firm belief that feminism has ‘come far enough’.
**UPDATE** And then Sweden said, “Håll min öl.“. (Hold my beer).
“Sweden’s deputy PM is causing a stir after posting an image appearing to parody Donald Trump’s signing of an anti-abortion executive order.
Isabella Lovin, who is also the country’s climate minister, published a photo that shows her signing a new law surrounded by female colleagues.
The image has drawn comparisons with Mr Trump’s photo in which no women were present.”
The referral of the Swedish climate law is signed. All future governments will be obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For a better planet and a better future.
Haydn’s chief biographer, H. C. Robbins Landon, has written that this mass “is arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition”.[1] Written in 1798, it is one of the six late masses by Haydn for the Esterhazy family composed after taking a short hiatus, during which elaborate church music was inhibited by the Josephinian reforms of the 1780s. The late sacred works of Haydn are masterworks, influenced by the experience of his London symphonies. They highlight the soloists and chorus while allowing the orchestra to play a prominent role.[2]
Owing to the political and financial instability of this period in European history, Haydn’s patron Nikolaus II dismissed the Feldharmonie, or wind band octet, shortly before Haydn wrote the Missa in Angustiis for the Princess’s name day.[2] Haydn, therefore, was left with a “dark” orchestra composed of strings, trumpets, timpani, and organ.[3] Later editors and arrangers added what they perceived to be missing woodwind parts, but the original scoring has again become the accepted choice for modern performances.
Though Haydn’s reputation was at its peak in 1798, when he wrote this mass, his world was in turmoil. Napoleon had won four major battles with Austria in less than a year. The previous year, in early 1797, his armies had crossed the Alps and threatened Vienna itself. In May 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt to destroy Britain’s trade routes to the East.
The summer of 1798 was therefore a terrifying time for Austria, and when Haydn finished this mass, his own title, in the catalogue of his works, was Missa in Angustiis (Mass for troubled times). What Haydn did not know when he wrote the mass, but what he and his audience heard (perhaps on September 15, the day of the very first performance), was that on 1 August, Napoleon had been dealt a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile by British forces led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Because of this coincidence, the mass gradually acquired the nickname Lord Nelson Mass. The title became indelible when, in 1800, Lord Nelson himself visited the Palais Esterházy, accompanied by his British mistress, Lady Hamilton, and may have heard the mass performed.[4]
Haydn’s original title may also have come from illness and exhaustion at this time, which followed his supervision of the first performances of The Creation, completed a few months earlier. More simply, it may have sprung from the challenge of composing without the desired instrumentation.[5] The solo parts for two of the vocal quartet are virtuosic: the bass line was perhaps written for the accomplished Christian Specht, and the soprano line, even more demanding, could have been written for Barbara Pilhofer or Therese Gassmann. The piece was premiered 23 September 1798 at the Stadtpfarr church, a last minute venue change from the Bergkirche in Eisenstadt.
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