My seconding Ronda’s recommendation was for substantive reasons. You’re welcome to disagree with those, as well as to disagree for the reasons you mention as well. As I said in my earlier comment, I was voicing my opinion. Nothing “dishonest” about that.

And Apostate certainly isn’t the only feminist blogger who would be vetoed, as Piny pointed out. None of us are in the business of playing Feminism Police, and we purposely invited guestbloggers who have varying perspectives and interpretations of feminism. My feminism doesn’t look like the feminism of a lot of people who have written for us, and a lot of the people who will be writing for us in the future. Heck, my feminism isn’t a carbon copy of Cara’s or Jack’s or Piny’s or Holly’s or Kactus’s either. But we’re on the same page enough that it works, and it makes sense to have us all in this space. We push the envelope even more with guest-bloggers, and invite people who differ more deeply, but there are fundamental things that we aren’t going to compromise on. In another thread about guest-bloggers a while back, one of our regular conservative commenters suggested that we invite someone who isn’t feminist and doesn’t buy into feminist ideology. Well, no, that’s not going to happen. We also aren’t going to invite people who have histories of transphobia (like Heart), or racism, or who have attacked us personally in the past. Picking guestbloggers is tough because there are just so many great people out there. We aren’t going to give a space to someone who has attacked our bloggers in the past (and I’m talking unfairly attacked, not disagreed or argued with) or has made statements that are contrary to the fundamental beliefs that this site rests on.

And even if I thought the Apostate would be the perfect guest-blogger — which I don’t, but let’s pretend — a veto from another Feministe blogger is an immediate no-go.

Jill, if you are really sincere and i honestly think you are in so many ways, even to admitting that you do indeed hold some patriarchal ennabling views, can’t you address the balance and allow a seasoned, radical feminist like al apostate come here as a guest blogger? I am not suggesting PHG for one minute, but perhaps the one person who has authority with young, angry and increasingly frustrated ex Muslim girls, al apostate, who I feel sure you must have heard of.

Thank you Piny for already partially covering this. Ronda, Jill does most of the back-end admin work, and is often recognized as the “face” of Feministe, but as she will readily and frequently acknowledge, she is not “in charge” here. We run things democratically. Everyone gets to suggest guest-bloggers, and we all get to veto suggestions if we want to. So I don’t know how Jill feels about Apostate, but I would not allow her here. Vetoed, even if Piny or no one else did. Apostate is someone who has regularly lied about me on her blog, called me names and would not be welcome in my space — which this is, as much as it is Jill’s, Holly’s, Piny’s, Jack’s, Lauren’s and Kactus’.

For some reason, and maybe I’m reading you wrong, you seem to think this makes her a better candidate, not a much worse one. I don’t really understand why. I also think the political stuff doesn’t end with the faith/apostasy chasm. Her shallow-at-best, hateful-at-worst insistence that feminism shouldn’t bother with issues like police brutality is another reason I wouldn’t want to see her here. Add that to her somewhat unpleasant personality surrounded by really unpleasant ancillary personalities, and why not just lose her invite, seriously?

She has a platform, and she is welcome to use it to create genuine debate. If all that’s being accomplished now, with her help, is a cultlike atmosphere of spiralling viciousness, why would bringing her here make things better? What open debate would happen? Heart isn’t gonna be blogging with us this summer, and between the quiverful history and the doctrinaire radical feminism, she deserves a place just as much as The Apostate does. Giving her one would be a really stupid idea, and it would only look more idiotic if her friends showed up here to start fights beforehand.

I’m excited to see your work here!