Some pretty violent responses on the mailing list. Bad times though, I hate receiving too many emails.
So what’s the plan everyone?
Looking for something?
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Well, i mean apart from ‘FUCK YOU LESBIANBITCH’ it’s all been gravy. I’ve emailed S. Forshaw just to say that it wasn’t our intention to destroy or remove the existing posters, but modify them. I understand his or her reaction, at least.
I’m quite surprised at the violence of some of the responses – though not surprised at so many unsubscriptions. It’s a shame it got out of hand so quickly?
Hopefully the discussion on the mailing list will die down so everybody stops getting annoyed.
This is my favourite:
The Vandalism protest
Inbox X
rbf23@cam.ac.uk X
Reply
Gabe Latner to Rachel
show details 4:10 PM (11 minutes ago)
Hi,
As the President I think you are ultimately responsible for this.
Please shut it down, or I will notify TFS and MPS.
Thank you.
Oh Also I’ve changed the settings so that the list is secure and postings can’t be sent out without approval. Should have thought of that earlier.
Who is TFS and MPS? Also why the hell are so many people bothered about stickering on some clearly quite disturbing and harmful posters? It’s as if anything goes as long as it’s got an institutional stamp of approval.
Eh. Big yawn at the people offended by the spam volume – I’m terribly sorry for making them click “delete” a few more times than they could handle in one afternoon. It must have been such an inconvenience.
Sorry that we annoyed people enough to get all those unsubscribe requests though.
I too got a funny email from our dear friend Gabe Latner, right after I emailed out at about 3AM:
> Are you aware you just used the University’s email client to commit
> multiple criminal offences?
>
> Good luck with that.
To which I responded:
> You know, I thought about it, but decided that if they can’t pay grad
> students for 4 full years of research, they probably aren’t paying
> someone to screen all of the femsoc emails for conspiracy to commit
> vandalism. Is there a precedent of Cambridge being a hardass about things
> like this? Certainly it’s more than possible that some of us will get
> caught and fined in London, but that wouldn’t follow us back here. Do you
> actually think that having this discussion on the femsoc list is likely
> to cause a lot of trouble? If so, I’ll move it off list right away and
> tell people to use non-Uni addresses, but it hardly seems worth the
> bother.
>
>Colin
He never wrote back. Heh.
wow, that caused a lot more trouble than I’d’ve expected.
I still think that it’s irresponsible and horrendously upsetting to use such over sensationalised posters. I mean, leaving aside the issues of ‘responsibility for rape’ or whatever, it is just appalling to walk past them when that subject can be so personally affecting and damaging.
but yes. It’s a shame I can’t make it on Sunday, but I’m still really interested to hear how it goes: keep me posted. (unintentional pun there… if that was a pun…)
Cxxx
it was a wicked pun, I lol’d. good to know we still have support! ft x
How are messages still getting through to the list?!
i approved them, we shouldn’t be censoring the list. if people don’t want to be on it that’s a separate matter. having said that, obviously we need to exercise discretion with the ‘FUCK YOU LESBIANBITCH’es of this world. other than that, some really constructive things have been said.
MPS is the Metropolitan Police Service, TFS presumably a typo: TFL intended. These two institutions probably would be pretty bothered by vandalism of the adverts. I think it would be unwise for CFS as a group to support actions of vandalism, although of course its members should support them as individuals if they wish to.
I agree with Jacob re: meeting on the subject. Gabe Latner is obviously very concerned for our welfare and our unscathed criminal records. Talks on actions/logistics now need to be clandestine in view of his altruism. I’m not too bothered about this.
Again from dear Gabriel, in case any of you were rolling your eyes so hard that you couldn’t see what he’d written:
>Before I delist. I may have emailed some of you individually, because i
>forgot to hit reply all:
>
> What is being suggested is criminal damage which can result in a prison
> sentence of up to 10 years. It is not protected as political speech.
> Advocating it is an offence. Agreeing with others to do it is an offence.
> Failing to notify the police after you are aware of such an agreement is
> an offence.
>
>I have already forwarded this thread to TFL and the MPS.
>
>What you are advocating isn’t feminism. It’s puerile and unworthy of the
>time of any one at this university.
>
> You are reading way more into this ad than is actually there. It’s akin
> to the presence of sexism in language : Hysteria: sexist. HIStory: just a
> word, that people who don’t understand etymology mistakenly believe to be
> sexist.
Do we have a problem?
I’m still down for doing this on Sunday; I just think we’ll have to be a little bit more subtle about it.
10 years = lol. Ceridwen: “Why does he care about criminal damage? I mean, why? Does he have shares in it, or what?” Guys, it’s been really fun doing all the stuff we did this year, but I’m sorry, I’m going down for about as long as some people are imprisoned for murder. For talking about stickers. I mean, apparently feminists have been like…USING.. stickers…. in the past. I LITERALLY CANNOT CONCEIVE OF ANYTHING MORE SUBVERSIVE. My eye is actually twitching? But also yeah, it must have been pretty confusing for people to get loads of emails from a society whose email list has basically been dormant this year. Part of me thinks we shouldn’t have brought it up on the mailing list, and then the rational, normal part of me goes, ‘hang on. why not… in any other university this would be more than acceptable…’?! I don’t think the angry repliers can have experienced being on the ENS discussion mailing list, bloody hell…
I was just really pissed off to see the HIStory bullshit trotted out again. I don’t think my argument was reading things into the poster that weren’t there. I wasn’t saying anything about the sexism of language; I was pointing out a particular device which is self-evidently present in this poster, and how damaging its sentiment is. Sigh.
Alright, I’m (“officially”) calling this off for Sunday. If you still want to do something, email me at cmcswiggen@gmail.com. After talking to Jordan about this, I think we need to keep discussion of anything arrestable to private emails among a handpicked group of people. The public email was a fuckup on my part. Sorry y’all. I’d love to be able to include as many people as possible in this sort of thing, but OH MAN did it get annoying when we tried.
hey people, i cant come sunday but i would like to in the future.
ps i dont think you should feel bad for making a suggestion like that, how could you have expected such a response! i personally found a few of the responses quite offensive and uncalled for.
i think what upset me most about this whole thing was the way that people were so happy to whip out epithets like “irrational” and “childish” which are so often used against women (and others) any time they do something a tinsy bit challenging of their boxy little gender (or other) roles. i mean to me there is a world of difference between saying “this add upsets me i want to do something about it” and “this add doesn’t upset me so i wont be involved thanks”; and on the other hand “this add doesn’t upset me so if it upsets you then you are a silly head and don’t you dare do anything about it that i wouldn’t do.” i think that if there is one place where i would like not to see gendered insults given it is on a feminist list.
what bothered me also was the amount of people asking to be delisted on the list – most of the spam in my inbox was people asking not to be on the list! i mean, they could have unsubcribed themselves on the lists page without spamming everyone, and if they couldn’t work out themselves how to unsubscribe then could have contacted the list moderator … though i guess this is a tiny pet hate.
no actually what bothered me most was getting grumpy and knowing that responding would only make it worse and having to keep it to myself. grr.
yeah, that bugs me too. Buuuuuut I suppose it’s one more step on the path to being adult and sensible and stuff – not biting back.
Or maybe it’s not…
grumpy is an indispensable quality for feminist organisation and action. the grumpier the better, in my experience. what needs to happen now is for us to bottle up our grumpiness, organise a meeting on the back of it all, and then unleash it onto the unwitting local community.
Brill.
On Mar 12 2010, Brad Berry wrote:
>
> I saw this – http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/feminist-fracas/ and i have
> to say you make me absolutely fucking sick.
>
>hopefully one day you’ll look back and see what an idiot you once were.
>
>xxx
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Got a cool Hotmail story? Tell us now
>http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
OH my god litch made the news. I can scarcely breathe for all the excitement.
I lol’d
A recent comment on the Tab:
“Dan Jones · 16 hours ago
If people behave in certain ways, they are more likely to be raped. Therefore, encourage them to stop this type of beahviour.”
Um…. point proved?
I MAY have written a response on the tab. Waiting for the hate mail to flood in. God why can’t I rise above these things?
where is it? i’m on the point of collapse with excitement