I’m sorry if I offended you. And that is an honest apology. Take it as you see it. I’m not going to fight for that either. It’s been a harrowing week, I’m exhausted, and just not up to trading blows. If this further offends you, again I’m sorry.

That is bullshit, Miguel, and you know it.

What you did is completely misrepresent what I wrote. You lecture me about not readfing your words carefully? Here we go.

You say:

Recently, Chris Clark of Creek Running North, wrote a piece about feminism. He ran through a list of reasons why a man cannot count himself a member of the coalition for women’s issues, simply because he is a man.

which is completely wrong. What I said was that despite the fact that I am a member of that coalition for women’s issues – and the first 800 or so words detailed a number of the ways in which I stongly count myself as a member of that colaition – I cannot claim the label “feminist.” That is it. Not the position: I spent almost a thousand words claiming the position. The label, Miguel.

Next. You say:

However, what rankled me about the post, and the consequent comments, was not its defence of women and the need to work to improve women’s situations in the world, but with its assumption that all men are somehow innately misogynistic and that women are somehow morally and socially superior to men,

I defy you to show me one place where I even imply this, much less say it. The majority of my post is on women’s experiences. In fact, I say this in the post:

At my best, I am an ally. But I am a member of the class against which feminism is aimed. I can do my best to be a traitor to that class. More and more men do, and I think no one would deny that the material support we can provide is crucial, whether talking to other men, offering political and financial and emotional support to feminist activists, or just doing the damn dishes half the time.

In other words, nothing about men as individuals except that an increasing number of us are doing our part to end women’’s oppression, and that work is crucial.

You say:

In the comments, as in so many such posts on feminism, no one dared contradict Chris, especially not men.

In fact, of 54 comments, about a third at least expressed reservations with what I said, with one commenter, Dr. Virago, making a sustained argument against it. Even stronger disagreement with my post took place elsewhere, for instance on Feministe, Violet Socks’ blog, and Alas a Blog. Far from not spurring controversy, the post spurred some of the most thoughtful and sustained disagreement of anything I have written in my life.

You say:

Chris’ post stereotypes all men as the macho jocks that I so hated in high school.

This is just so completely off the wall I do not know how to begin to rebut it. It has absolutely no connection to anything I wrote.

I t is pretty clear to me that what’s going on here, and something which I have challeged you on in the past, is that you were looking for an excuse to bash individual Americans once again:

That kind of thinking has become almost universal in the States now, so much so that it is extremely difficult for any man to publicly voice his opinion without automatically being voted down as ignorant and opportunistic.

First off, this is ludicrously wrong, as a simple survey of blogs of American men will prove. The majority are far from radical feminist supporters. But secondly, you’re doing exactly the same thing you (wrongly) accuse me of doing: wildly misinterpreting a very limited statement about terminology as a general statement about men, and then stating baldly that this is uniform among Americans.

You think having bought a copy of my book should shield you from me being angry at you when you so flagrantly misrepresent my post, casting me as just one more goddamn ignorant American to whose thinking you are so fucking superior? I will point out to you that a visit to Amazon will allow you to be refunded your money.

After all the praise I’ve given you and your writing, and so many times sending people your way for quite a lot of what I considered great writing (as you very well know. I even sent you money for your book!), surely you could have made a little more effort to read my own words a little more carefully and with some grains of salt?

I just happen to disagree with you. I guess that means, listening to your comment, that I ought just to shut up since I guess I can’t be a friend of Chris and at the same time disagree with things he proclaims. Disagree or, heaven forbid, dislike things Chris says, and you get stomped on.

That’s as far as I go in replying to you, Chris, until you can be a little more civil with a more-or-less friend.

In the comments, as in so many such posts on feminism, no one dared contradict Chris, especially not men.

is just flat out wrong. One person after another showed up to state that he or she disagreed with my post.

Your representation of my post is just one flat out falsehood after another. I welcome disagreement at my blog, and I always have, as you damn well know. But this kind of shit? You’re being ridden by your own issues and not seeing what I actually wrote, nor what the commenters on that post actually wrote.

Which really sucks from someone I counted as more or less a friend.

Your readers here are free to read the post to which you linked and judge for themselves. You are free to go fuck yourself.