Conflict and dissent

Reposted from an earlier comment thread.

http://ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com/255361.html
Conflict and Dissent != Divisiveness. Ask any of the women who left feminism during the 2nd wave's height because of folks like Dworkin. Tamora Pierce, probably the best feminist YA author out there for longer than either of us have been alive, was chased out of the movement by these folks. There is a strong strain of exclusionary tactics in the feminist movement, and while it isn't solely or even originally a second wave thing, that is where they were honed and polished. Hell, it is even built into some of the common terms used by 3rd wave feminists, and to a large degree, at the center of the current problems that women of color are having with the "leaders" of mainstream (read white) feminism. (See: any time that "ally" is used to describe feminist men. Ally is a great term in certain contexts, but in general discussions of feminism, it falls short, it excludes men from the category of "feminist." I can be an ally of the LGBTQetc community, I can be an ally of black rights movements, I can be an ally of women's rights movements, I can be an ally of of folks seeking to avoid religious persecution, I can be an ally of any group that I am not, myself a member of. But I can not be an ally of feminism via feminists, because I am a feminist.