I am feminist fail?

I'm alive! My grandma drove me somewhere, and I'm alive (I just wish I was rich enough to own a car, so that she would never drive me anywhere ever ever ever ever ever ever again...).

I think she thinks that appropriate gears and speeds are for fascists, capitalists and/or the under-85s. Which she thinks are all the same thing. Like first and fourth gear, in fact.

Firstly, I have the most awesome tattoo ever in the history of the world ever.

I hope that's clear. I also hope it heals well.

I've been watching people descend on this blogger with the understanding that they are, in fact, Hermione Granger and she is, in fact, a house-elf (the metaphor, applicably, of that man pseudonymously named Hagrid).

When she says "You are not Hermione Granger and I am not a house-elf", they say "well... well... you're a SLUT! Ha! Yes, a SLUT! And a BITCH! HA!"

Thus ends my detailed analysis of "sex-negative" - no, wait, YES sex-negative, also incredibly woman-negative, the-porn-industry-is-a-monolith, feminism.

I refuse to share a label with women who are so bitterly, evilly judgemental of other women (racism, transphobia etc. in the movement are a thousand million other posts... hell, could be a thousand million encyclopaedias).

"Female Chauvinist Pigs"? If you're living under a rock, this is a fairly new, popular "feminist" book in which the author, Ariel Levy, does NOTHING but insult and belittle other women (and some transmen/transmale genderqueers, for good measure).

Classy. That'll end male domination, I'm sure. That's just as useful as fighting for employment rights or reproductive freedom, fighting against rape or female genital mutilation... etc. etc. Those issues will take care of themselves!

Sadly, the issue is as old as feminism itself - no, hang on, Mary Wollstonecraft never wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Some Women, and A Great Long Bitch About Others" - OK, then, at least a few decades old.

My introduction? I was 15. I was wandering through Waterstone's, having just had my lip pierced at a shop around the corner. I thought "aha, I have never browsed through the feminist section before, even though I am feminist - I am feminist because it's evident that women are equal to men in worth, and they (I thought "we" at that point) are hardly ever treated like that is the case".

The first paragraph I read in the first academic book I skimmed through? All about how women were JUST DISGUSTING for having body piercings, tattoos, etc, because they were TORTURING THEMSELVES for male approval.

Yup, I loved all that male approval that my gothy appearance procured! All those beatings from boys at school, and all the street harrassment!

I'd assumed that other feminists had my back, and I had theirs - but I had the sense just to laugh at that particular author and assume that most feminists were lovely people, dedicated to gaining women every freedom.

Well... fuck that belief. Royally.

I know some people would think that I can't speak about these issues - I'm disqualified as I "quit" womanhood.

Look. If a woman says/writes, "I believe this..." or "This happened to me..." I listen. Intently. I assume that that woman is telling the truth. I mentally file the information away for future use. If the statement is my first example, a belief, I check that it does not contain blatant racism, misogyny or any other ideology that only exists to hurt - if it does not appear to, I accept it.

If a woman says/writes "Women all think", "Women all do", "A real woman would never"... they fail the misogyny test. Just as a man would, if he expressed the same sentiments.

So... do I call myself a feminist any longer? What do I call myself instead? I particularly won't call myself a "trans-positive feminist" because that implies that hatred of trans women is an optional feminist extra, like peanut butter on toast. Is "womanist" vastly culturally inappropriate, as I'm white and English? "Trying not to be a dick to women" doesn't roll off the tongue.