One Million Pissed Off Women Not Safe Space For Differently Abled

Until Tuesday, I was a member of One Million Pissed Off Women, a anti-misogyny, anti-homophobia, and anti-racism group on Facebook. I thought it was a really great group of women, and the page posts a lot of interesting news links and activism opportunities.

Well.

In reaction to North Carolina’s passage of Amendment One, that will enshrine homophobia into the state’s constitution, one of the admins posted a status using an ableist slur referring to the people who voted for the measure. Many of us took exception to this, because hello, comparing people with developmental disabilities to homophobic bigots is not cool.

The admin reacted badly, to say the least, as did many members. The usual defenses were used, “well, they are stupid,” “I’m not discriminating!” “it doesn’t mean [the general accepted definition of the slur], it means this!” The thread quickly degenerated. The admin posted another status, trying to justify her ableism, and frame those of us angry at her bigotry as meanies out to spoil her fun. Needless to say, that thread degenerated quickly as well.

Soon, I no longer recognized the feminist page that I joined months ago. It resembled more a hate-fest on a tea party page. Seriously, it was nasty. Use your own judgment before you click the links–many of the commenters were vile. After posting several comments, I decided to leave the group.

I wasn’t the only one. Others posted of their intention to leave the group.

One poster commented on the page’s wall, saying:

“”Racism, sexism and homophobia are not permitted in this area.” …But saying [slur redacted]–totally acceptable!”

The admin responded thusly: “yep!”

Because of the nature of Facebook, the ugliness will be buried in the group’s timeline…until the next time someone throws out an ableist slur, of course. But differently abled feminists (and decent people in general) should know:

One Million Pissed Off Women is not a welcoming space for us.