Rana, of Frogs and Ravens, is one pissed-off frog:

Do these things sound familiar?

“You lefties just don’t get it . . .”

“Why are you offended by this? It’s no big deal, and we have more important things to talk about . . .”

“It’s not like Roe v. Wade is going to overturned — and maybe if it is, that’d be a good thing . . .”

She puts the “feminist issues are not second-class” argument as well as it ever was:

What [these arguments] all have in common is the presumption that the speaker understands what’s in my interests better than I do. . . .

[E]ven if I wasn’t well-informed, even if I was dumb as a post with a turtle on top of it, I still have a better sense of my life, my goals, my needs, my interests than any other person possibly could.

So, guys — and it is almost always guys — SHUT UP.

I’ve got things to do, and you’re getting in my way.

And from the comments (a thread about the effectiveness of supporting the Greens vs. the Democrats):

This isn’t about tactics.

It’s about feeling alienated, about being _made_ to feel alienated, even by one’s allies, and not being allowed to think that one’s beliefs are as important as others’ agendas. It’s about being told, time after time, that my interests are best served by promoting others’ first, not my own. It’s about being made to feel like my issues are second-best, and that they always will be, because they are not “practical” or “mainstream” enough.

I didn’t write this to give Democrats advice on how to win over Greens, or feminists, or gays, or environmentalists.

I wrote it because I’m tired of having my values judged against others’ privileged yardsticks, and told that not only is this something I should put up with for the time being, but something that I should learn to accept as inevitable. I wrote it because I am always sitting in the back seat of the bus, and I’m tired of being told that I should be grateful to be on the bus at all, or that I shouldn’t worry because the bus is going to take me where I should go after it stops at everyone else’s stop first, if it doesn’t run out of gas first.

I don’t want advice. I want affirmation.

Great thoughts, all - even though I find the message hard to hear, myself, sometimes. Women throughout the progressive community are facing many of the same barriers imposed by reactionaries, and it rightly pisses them off. Progressive men don’t get it nearly well enough, and women we ally with on issues we both care about - not to mention “women’s issues”, which even on the left are still hostage to a largely male-controlled political agenda - have been “waiting to exhale” their whole lives with little safe space to breathe in even yet.

Instead of paying lip-service to women’s concerns and back-burnering them in favor of the “important shit” (thanks for nothing, DailyKos), it’s important to affirm, listen, and shut up, at least occasionally.