Bah, this was why I didn’t want to go into this. As with all aspects of my feminism, what I’m trying to do here is to act as an ally to feminist viewpoints I’ve been exposed to, without trying to shape those viewpoints.

It becomes complicated when there are different viewpoints and areas where they conflict. “Women are best placed to determine the direction of feminism” is one of those. It’s a radfem tenet but obviously not held by all feminists, as this thread (and a million other conversations) shows.

Perhaps it’s best to say that my support for this viewpoint is based on its being held by many feminist women I know, both face to face and online, and if it seems like I’m advocating it, it’s only because I’m trying to put forward their position with as little paraphrase or reformulation as I can manage.

But the fact that I think the voices of women should come first in this discussion also means, Ruth & Katie, that I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t want for you to waste your time arguing with me when you could be doing feminism your way.

Dan, I have less of a problem raising the disagreement with you, but not really much more interest in persuing it once it’s clear we have very difficult viewpoints. That’s partially because I’ve never really seen anyone change their mind on the internet in this kind of discussion, and partially similar to what I wrote above about Ruth & Katie – you obviously think feminism is a good idea and I’m sure you’re doing good stuff, and I’m cool with that. I do think that explaining in tedious detail to women how their test is imprecise and you, a dude, can fix it, isn’t really the best way, but I’m sure you do other stuff which is significantly more awesome and I don’t want to distract you from that. That’s not meant to be sarcasm.

So, all: if you’d like to argue with this viewpoint; argue with those women, not with me. Think about it – if no women hold that view, I’m hardly going to hold it either. And it’s very difficult to argue with me about it when the views I’m putting forward are partly mine and partly others’ – it’s not fair for me to become persuaded “on their behalf”.