Erin Pizzey tells her own story.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

http://rebukingfeminism.blogspot.com/2009/01/erin-pizzey-one-womans-story.html

Ok, that is the link.
Me? I reckon she did the right thing.
I am not sure what benefit I might have gained from blowing up Biba, a store in london - but if her refuges had been there for my mother, it certainly would have helped.
I am suprised that some feminists still attack her - and no, I don't subscribe to Harriet Harman's view that men cannot contribute anything to the family.

But what's your take on Erin Pizzey, I wonder?

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

She seems interesting. It's hard to tell from just that article, which is obviously written from her point of view. I'm also loathe to comment on feminist issues, because it's a field where I know I am not terribly knowledgeable.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Biba was bombed because the women's movement thought it was a capitalist enterprise devoted to sexualizing women's bodies.


The whole gosh-darned women's movement?

Then I guess the 16th Street Church Bombing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing) proves that every white person in America in 1963 was in the Klan.

Of course there is another answer -- outside of movements like Nazism & Stalinism, you don't do anyone any favors by taking even personal experiences with the least pleasant people in movements as representative of the whole. She had, if she is to be believed as an honest narrativist, terrible experiences with militant, Marxist oriented feminists two generations ago that continued. She concludes, as most dishonest critics of any ideology do, that this is representative.

There's a lesson here -- the most radical and militant of ANY movement are to be avoided like the plague...and the people who describe them as indicative of the entire movement without bothering to prove it lose their right to be taken seriously as critics. Which is a shame because if her narrative had been restricted to the danger of radicals instead of propping up the radicals as the entirety of the movement, it would be a great cautionary.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

To start with, I'm not about to take any article on a MRA blog seriously. If you want to advance your cause you may want to vet your sources more carefully.

Next, I agree completely with malasadas, even if what she has described did happen in exactly that way, to use it to discredit all of feminism is distasteful and dishonest.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

I've made this same argument with atheism. Shrill voices on one side are an essential part of the movement. If the most radical thing you hear is a moderate, rational view and the most reactionary thing you hear is "barefoot and pregnant" the result is most often an opinion between moderate and reactionary. By hearing the extreme radical view the result changes to the center by showing that the moderate view isn't as radical as it would otherwise appear.

This has been shown to be successful and is the tactic that Fox news has used since its inception. Be way to the right, thus drive general opinion to the right. It is also a basic tactic of negotiation - you always ask for more then you are likely to get because you know you'll have to trade something away. A friend of mine who is into game theory told me that generally the best strategy is tit-for-tat. Escalate a response equal in scale to your opponent. IMO, liberals in the US generally aren't doing this well and that is why they are losing.

Pizzey apparently wants to be one of the moderate voices which is fine because they serve a purpose as well, by coming in behind the radicals and discussing the moderate view. In that sense the militant feminists will make her life easier. She should be thanking them for that.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

You know this is odd -- I keep looking up Biba and bombing and what I get is an organization called The Angry Brigade. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angry_Brigade)

Pizzey's story doesn't mention whether or not what she is talking about is a plan that originated within the feminist circles she had experience with or if they just knew about it and approved. She DOES make it sound as if they CARRIED OUT THE BOMBING when she says Biba was bombed BECAUSE feminists hated it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the heck?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

She's describing part of the continual attack on the family which is out to undermine the support it provides society and we see today the effects of that ongoing war. I think she's right on.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

I read the blog entry and I like it. Haven't read anything else by her though.