History of Feminism

For example, someone recently posted a thread about the homophobic policies in Russia. A poster made a really offensive remark, under the excuse of quoting George Carlin, "more p...y for me." The only way homosexuality creates "more p...y" for him is by ignoring the fact gay women exist. People may use the term "gay" to refer to men, but LGBT and heteronormative are not supposed to mean men only. But the fact is for many they do.

I've noticed that when I post something related to women, I occasionally get accused of being heteronormative because whatever I've written doesn't account for gay men. In some cases these are straight men who hate seeing anything that focuses on women and invoke the term heteronormativity as an excuse for why women don't matter. In others, there is a simple assumption that gay, LGBT, and heteronormativity means gay male homosexuality. I see that on the part of both gay and straight men. It is sometimes used to shut down discussions of and even legitimate sexism. Someone expresses concern about some form of exploitation against women, whether rape, domestic violence, or porn, they are accused of being heteronormative. In all of these cases, women are the subjects/objects about 90% of the time, and men about the other 10%. That 90% of women includes both gay and straight. That a woman is raped by a man or is the object of male-female porn does not mean she is straight. That I post about women doesn't mean I don't know or care that men are also victims. Rather, I have an interest in women's issues, and since I'm a woman that is my own experience. The charge of heteronomativity in such circumstances assumes homosexuality itself is about gay men exclusively, as though lesbians don't exist or aren't included in general discussions of women, something I never assume.

The problem is some men cannot abide the fact that anyone but themselves be the center of focus. Their sense of privilege is so absolute, the existence of issues that concern another gender is entirely trivial. What these people really are saying is that you are talking about women, who aren't worth shit. We don't want to hear about it so keep your second-class trap shut. That message is louder on the internet that anywhere else.