Friday Open Thread: Serenity Prayer for _________
Feminism is not perfect, because feminism is comprised as a movement of feminists, who last time I checked, were human. So I’ve about had it with self-proclaimed feminists going on about how feminism as an organized institution is fatally flawed because it’s had issues with racism, classism, ablism, heterocentricity, transgenderism, fat-phobia, etc, etc, etc, rinse, repeat, whatever.
Feminism is what we have to work with. We can’t expect other rights’ movements to champion women’s issues when they have their own battles to fight. Stand together with those other rights movements, but don’t just dismiss feminism out of hand because 100% of feminists out there are not behaving exactly as you think they should and internet feminist #49058 used the word “retard.” Feminism is not a brain-wiping ray that errupts from the uterus of the president of NOW that pre-ordains our words and actions. We do not have control over everyone who calls themselves a feminist. There will be assholes. So please, internet feminists… I would like very much to suggest the following:
Serenity Prayer for Feminists
Xena grant me the courage to work towards equality for all women, everywhere, regardless of their particular difference to me as a woman working for my equality. When someone points out that my behavior is dismissive or disempowering, grant me the serenity to not throw a giant shit fit and act like a complete tool. When I see someone else engage in behavior or rhetoric that is disempowering, grant me the wisdom to accept that not everyone is at the same point in their path towards greater consciousness of equality as a holistic right to be achieved by all, and that it is my job to help them a little further down that path without being a complete jerk, and that sometimes you just gotta accept that people can be ignorant no matter how much truth and consciousness-raising you try to bash into their skulls. Finally, grant me the comprehension that feminism as a movement is comprised of millions of smart, funny women who are trying to correct the oversights of old, and that if we’re going to reach holistic equality, we all gotta work together and the more of us who call ourselves feminists who work hard for all equality who actually care about the intersection of oppression will make the movement stronger over all.
OK, that was heavy for a Friday afternoon, sorry. If you wrote a “serenity prayer” for a group, what would it be? Suggestions: Gamers (natch), insufferable music snobs, Democrats, etc.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Ia, Ia C’thulu, F’t- oh sorry about that, but I am pleading with N’ralyhotep that neither election has a conservative winner. If not, I hope the stars come right shortly after and spare us the agony.
I’m not very spiritual, aside from blasphemy and heresy, but I do offer up this sentiment for the girls (and women) I see who have been brainwashed by pop culture.
“Oh Lordi, please make them AWAre that there are ways to be talented, creative, beautiful and admired that dosen’t involve being someone’s Pop Tart blow-up doll and cast those who have led them astray into the jaws of tear where they shall be rent apart and trampled under powerhouse hooves. Amen.” Follow up with double horns gesture. (\mm/)
I also pray to Gia that my niece, being raised by two image obsessed ‘keep up with the Jones’ parents, doesn’t end up hating herself because she’ll never be Cosmo perfect. I’d try to be a more positive influence but her parents have pretty much cast me in the ’scary, creepy relative’ role. All I can do is wait for the kid to start rebelling/making her own decisions and be there when it happens.
As for gamers, I just have a reoccurring mantra (”Offerfuxaks, you CAN’T be serious…!?”) when my hand hits my forehead reading other forums.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
N’ralyhotep plushie sitting on top of Pony’s office bookshelf looks down upon you and smiles, and then devours your soul in the most adorable way possible.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
He’ll have to be happy with the bits and pieces my own plushie C’thulhu’s haven’t eaten yet. (Elder Gods, were grown in the same lab, Mighty One?)
September 20th, 2008 at 3:53 am
I’m such a strong atheist that I can’t even pretend there is a God. But,
So here is my Prayer.
Dear Mighty Mighty Ponygirl, please grant us the wisdom to realise that no outside power is going to come to our aid and help us, this is it, what we see is what we get. Though things are bad and sometimes it seems as if they’re getting worse, give us the insight to realise that we cannot hope for an outside agent to affect change, if we want this shit to stop then we have to stop it ourselves.
Deliver us from false hope and open our eyes to the knowledge that all great things have come from human beings who had the courage to stand up and say no, this isn’t good enough, we can do better.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I’d remove the reference to holism as a fanatical reductionist.
And I’d squeeze “You can’t take the sky from me” in at some point on mere principle.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
*puts on his “annoying nerd” hat*
*adopts incredibly grating nasal tone*
Umm…actually…ummm…Cthulu isn’t an Elder God, he’s actually a Great Old One. Which is different from the Elder Gods, which is different from the Elder Things, which is different from the Outer Gods (which is what Nyralathotep is).
*takes off “annoying nerd hat*
Yeah, I deeply apologize for that.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Ah yes, my mistake. Don’t worry: I’m sure I’ll be appropriately punished for my blasphemy… wait, what’s that I hear on the roof? Hooves? oh sh*t. Between that and the ‘rats’ in the wall making the cat all squirelly, its gonna be a very unpleasant weekend.
September 20th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Again, I do kind of hate being the annoying nerd, but unfortunately, years of training kick in sometimes.
And really, it’s all about Hastur, The King in Yellow.
Anyway, here’s my Serenity Prayer for George Lucas:
May the force be your guide, George, and lead you to stop. Seriously. You’ve got money, you don’t need more, just leave what’s left of your legacy be without poisoning it further. Just make sure you leave the original, unadulterated trilogy alone, and retire with whatever dignity you have left.
Oh, and get me a lightsaber hilt. That would be bad ass.
September 20th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
http://www.macguff.fr/goomi/unspeakable/home.html
bg, you will love this site.
September 20th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Serenity Prayer for Future Teachers
Paulo Freire grant me the insight to self-reflect on all decisions I take during my co-teaching periods, and that this insight last on when my career actually begins. If my pedagogy is not up to snuff, grant me the willingness to question my own ability and accountancy so that I may improve. If my students become rebellious, grant me the patience to think the situation through and turn that into an advantage. Should the school’s administration block all of my paths, grant me the spirit to challenge their stonewalling and make the lives of my students a fruitful one. Finally, never allow me to forget that I accepted this career to further progressive causes to make the future generation a more accepting, loving, and liberal one, no matter how big an ocean of negative “isms” I may face while I try to empty it with my teaspoon.
Yeah, that last part was lifted straight out of Shakesville.
September 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Lords of gaming hear my prayer
Let my fellow gaming brothers be thoughtful and kind, let us help our sisters, both gamers and non-gamers, to achieve equality. Let us be cured of both the blatant sexism and the hidden sexism that runs in our community. O’Lords let females characters become well developed, or at the least as well developed as their male counterparts. Let discussion be thoughtful and non-combative, let out battles be fought wisdom and not with profanities. Please lords, let gamers and feminists everywhere see that no division truly exists, that we all should fight for equality, fairness and respect for all, regardless of our gender, race, religion, ideology or taste in genres, we should fight, simply because the asshole thing to do is not fight. Finally lords, let us be strong enough to endure the assholes of the world, let common sense, kindness and respect be spread.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:33 pm
O Holy Pong, please grant me the serenity to make it through the grind so that I can beat Final Fantasy XII on my third try at the last boss, rather than the thirty-third; grant me the serenity to retain my controller firmly in my hand when I discover that Ike can only do 2 points of damage to the Black Knight, and keep trying in the hope that someone will come in and rescue him, rather than having to play through 50 hours of Fire Emblem frustration again; grant me the serenity to keep it together when Xenosaga shows me something dumb and incoherent and expects me to sit there basking in its awesome; protect my Morrowind save files from the invisible save-game-eating fairy because I just made it to 16th level and I don’t want to have to do it again; grant me the power to realize when it’s time to turn the game off and take care of real-world stuff, like chores and work and sleep and wife.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Great Muppety Odin, grant me the power to inflict a temporary painful sensation on people through the internet. I’ll do my best to use it only on the willfully ignorant, the disingenuous, and the bigots.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I claim my open thread privelages to share with you my newly discovered favourite band.
(they sing with Scottish accents, what’s not to love?)
http://www.myspace.com/frightenedrabbit
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Serenity prayer? That’s easy –
Oh mighty Whed-On, grant me the Serenity to escape Alliance oppression, the courage to smuggle illegal goods throughout the rim, and the wisdom to stay the hell away from Reavers.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Nice.
Well, I’ve done gone and pissed off feminists with my feminist serenity prayer.
I guess pleading with patience and understanding from feminists who aren’t aware of cross-oppression issues while also pleading with patience and understanding from feminists who do that we have to support one another and try our best to educate one another because we’re all we got was translated as “people who are active in other civil rights movements need to STFU.” Which, funny, was actually the opposite of what I was trying to say. But I guess I’m also a huge mainstream tool who tries really hard to play nice with people who aren’t worth it at the cost of real feminist advancement.
My approach has always been: If I feel that someone is here in good faith, and they do something that I don’t agree with, I will always always attempt “gentle correction.” (Trolls, not so much). It’s not just about catching more flies with honey (even if that’s supposedly not true), it’s about trusting feminists to ultimately do the right thing. I think a few people have come here expecting feminism lite and I have, on occasion, had to explain why radical feminists aren’t the big scary.
When you confront someone about a blind spot that they have — and we all have them, you have two ways of doing so.
1) You can flame on. For example: “What the fuck was that racist bullshit?”
2) You can attempt to point out said bullshit in a way that will not make a person defensive. “Look, I think you may have meant it as a compliment when you said that black people are good at sports because white people bred them like horses for centuries, but that’s a really loaded thing to say and you might want to refrain from that line of dialog in the future because it’s actually racist.”
If you take path #2, you’re more likely to get someone to actually reflect on their behavior. If you take path #1, they’re going to get defensive and are that much less likely to grow as a person. So if you’re just angry that they said something racist (even if it was completely unwitting), then by all means, just yell at them. But if you want them to stop engaging in racist behavior, path #2’s your best bet.
If you take path #2, you’re not guaranteed success. There is a chance that someone will, in fact, blow you off as being “too P.C.” And this is why it’s important to remember, especially on the internets, that we’re not all in the same place on our journey. I positively cringe at some of the things I thought and said early on in my feminist career. I think there is a degree of discovering your inner asshole when you’re starting out as a feminist — when you’ve been raised to be meek and quiet and not rock the boat, realizing that to advance yourself to where your goals are may require you to be brash and self-aggrandizing and a big egotistical jerk.
Hopefully, you get over that.
And yes, it sounds maternalistic to say, but when I called my sister a “slut” (I’d been reading fairy tales, and was using the old definition of just ‘lazy’), my mom didn’t throw me out of the house. She told me not to use that word anymore, that it was a bad word to use, and I figured it out. If we “kick people out of feminism” because they haven’t yet made the connection between women’s equality and the other equality movements out there, they probably never will.
But more, I’m just upset that so many women are kicking themselves out of feminism based on the behavior of certain high-profile feminists who aren’t there yet. It makes me absolutely despair when I see people declare “I don’t want to call myself a feminist anymore because of [racism incident X] or [ablism incident Y].”
We all have shit that we need to work on. That’s the pessimist thing to say.
If we support each other and show patience with one another, and stick by one another, then we’ll get there together. That’s the optimist thing to say.
I’m not saying we need to keep turning the other cheek. If a feminist is being an ass, she needs to know. And my belief is that we need to have a little faith in her that it wasn’t out of malice, but out of ignorance. But if you point out that someone is being an ass and they keep being an ass, well, that’s not feminism’s fault — that’s that person being an ass. We can disavow that person (or “those people”) without disavowing the principles that women should achieve equality.
But you can disavow people. A bunch of people appear to have just disavowed me.
I don’t speak for all feminists. You can still call yourself a feminist and a gamer, even if you don’t visit Feminist Gamers anymore.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:52 am
@ MPG
I think you state your positions with humor, tact, intelligence, and an understanding that change doesn’t happen overnight and that the right way to reach people is to speak your truth and live your truth without having to constantly drop the hammer indiscriminately just to prove that you’re committed to your beliefs.
As a result, I’ve listened and learned here, whereas with the other approach I might have just continued down the road. Hatred, even of ignorance, is an expression of ignorance and as such much more worthy of “disavowing” than a statement of temperance and moderation.
No-one can dictate who is or is not living by feminist ideals through “disavowing” anymore than the Catholic Church can take away your personal connection to God through excommunication. Or, if you’re an atheist — your personal connection to nihilism by throwing you out of the Jean-Paul Sartre fan club. Or . . . well, you get the point.
The only thing you can be held accountable for is if you live your personal truth or not — based on what I can see, I believe that you do. All the disavowing in the world can’t keep you from reaching people in your own way. Keep it up.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I don’t think anyone has a problem with your approach. It’s suggesting that all feminists should take this approach that is problematic. If you say that all women should take this approach to feminism, then you’re suggesting that other choices some women may make are not valid or appropriate. This dismisses whatever experiences that they have had that led them to make whatever choice it is that they have made. Your experiences have led you to this approach and it is valid. Their experiences have led them to other conclusions, and those too are valid, are they not?
Why should feminists be implicitly trusted to do the right thing? Simply because they identify with feminism? Also, if one catches more flies with honey, and your goal is to convince people that they should remain within the feminist movement, wouldn’t it be more effective to focus your efforts on making feminism more inclusive and thus more appealing to them, rather than calling them out for leaving?
But what if they want to leave feminism because of [racism incident A, B, C, D, E, F and all the way to Z]? Or [ableism incident A, B and C] plus [homophobic incident D, E and F]? What is someone has spent years attempting option number two–forgiveness, faith and education–and has continually been told that s/he is overreacting, or that their issue isn’t important enough? What if said person has tried over and over again to give feminists the benefit of the doubt and has repeatedly found little to no success with path number two? How much should this person be expected to take? Is there an acceptable threshold one can reach, after which they find that feminism as they have experienced it, just doesn’t seem to represent who they are?
What if that person has been informed that their behavior is counter intuitive to equality enough times that they can no longer reasonably claim ignorance? What if that person, or persons, have a whole lot of influence within the feminist movement and hundreds or thousands of others agree with them to the point that it’s not just that person being an ass, but that person teaching oppression to a large segment of the feminist population? Or what if that person is supported financially by feminist institutions and is granted authority within the movement? At what point do these individual actions add up and start becoming more than just random, isolated incidents of asshattery? Racism/ableism/etc are not isolated within the greater, non-feminist population; it would seem to follow that it is likely that they are likewise not merely exceptions within the feminist movement, but are in fact systematic.
Why do you equate disavowing the feminist label with disavowing one’s commitment to the principles that women should achieve equality? This is especially confusing when you consider the fact that many women leave feminism because they feel it only supports a a small segment of women; it would follow then that their commitment to women’s equality is not just limited to to feminist movement and that their support of women’s equality will continue beyond their identification with the feminist label.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Hey guys, I can’t find a mail address for this site, but thought this might be of interest, in a *sigh* kind of way:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/24/plastic-guitars-now-for-girls-too-thanks-aly-and-aj/
September 25th, 2008 at 3:25 am
For the record, I think they look FABULOUS and would totally play one if I had one, it’s just the marketing that gets me.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
To Mighty Ponygirl:
I did a bit of tracking down and noticed the context of your comment (and who it affected), but I’m not going to get involved on this directly, mostly because while I respect both you and one of the feminists you refer, I have to admit I didn’t get the subtext that is being challenged.
What matters is whether I saw it or not, and what I thought about it. Seeing as I didn’t see it and didn’t think about it, I can’t comment on the situation. I am, though, following along because I want to see how, individually as a feminist, I can learn from the situation.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:10 am
I’d check and see if it was the holism what pissed them off.
Reductionism for teh win!
September 26th, 2008 at 8:30 am
What’s problematic about the principles of 1) When someone calls you on behavior, you listen to them instead of blowing them off, and 2) When someone behaves inappropriately, you should try to call them on their behavior in a way that’s most likely to get them to think about what they’ve done, rather than make them defensive?
How is that a “bad idea” that everyone just take that on? Do we want to further weaken feminism because people made a bad situation worse by their behavior?
Gamers come to this site all the time. The trolls, I don’t waste my energy on. Yeah, they’re still gamers, but they’re not people I’m going to try to candy-coat. I’m perfectly willing to let them have their space away from me as long as I have mine, because I was able to find other gamers who were feminists. We don’t have the gaming majority now, but I live in hope, because we have community and we’re not giving up. I’m not going to say “the way that the gamers on Kotaku treat women … it makes me not want to not call myself a gamer” because then I’m taking myself out of the sphere where I might actually be able to influence the perception of gaming.
If you’re active in other civil rights movements, feminism should be your ally. But if you encounter feminists, maybe even not just one or two but a whole throng, who don’t understand why they should be your ally, then you need to find allies within feminism who do. It’s honestly not that hard considering one of the major planks of the third wave has been inclusion and cross-oppression awareness.
For the feminist sites out there–they all have their areas that they need to work on. For individual feminists — we do what we can. I’ve been called on my behavior before, and I’ve called other feminists on their behavior. I’ve worked on it, I’ve seen other feminists work on it. But if they feel like they’re just being attacked, then they’re not going to work on it because they’re going to dig in to defend. When I feel I’m being attacked, I’m a lot less likely to think “hm, this person has a point about my behavior” and more likely to think “this person just has a bug up their butt.”
But you know what? Even when I think “this person just has a bug up their butt,” a lot of times after stuff cools down, I will look back on the incident and find room for personal growth there. But it happens a lot later than it would if I had been approached about the issue in a way that didn’t make me feel like the person was gunning for me.
Progress can be made in bridging these gaps with patience and good faith. It might not happen overnight. When someone has been raised to think that the phrase “that’s retarded” isn’t a slur, they’re going to have to work to purge it from their lexicon when they begin to understand that yes, it is. And they need patience and good faith on that account. Now, if you just can’t stand to hear that phrase coming out of an ally’s mouth, you are more than welcome to take your leave of that ally until they’ve gotten it worked out, and you’re totally within your right, but just because you’ve encountered people in the movement that piss you off doesn’t mean that’s all there is to the movement. And I still maintain that acting as if the movement is only comprised of those people is doing a major disservice to the people who have been working hard and patiently to overcome prejudices within the ranks. They deserve respect and support, not some /ragequit that tars them, too, as just a bunch of prejudiced wankers.
Chances are, you yourself are not perfect and there’s shit that you’re still working on that might be pissing off some other feminist. If they can still call themselves a feminist while you work on your shit, you can still call yourself a feminist while that other person works on their shit.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Mighty Ponygirl said:
What’s problematic is that you haven’t been doing that at all during this conversation. It’s been said here, on my blog, and on Iris that what we have a problem with is 1) your snarky and dismissive tone, and 2) the fact that you’re saying that our choice, if we so choose, to distance ourselves from the feminist label is an invalid one. On top of that, you’re consistently ignoring the fact that we point out that the disillusionment with the feminist label doesn’t come from a few isolated incidents, but rather a greater pattern.
When you’re saying it’s our duty to stay in feminism because we should just ignore our frustration/anger/etc and work towards educating these women, what you’re doing is asking the oppressed to educate the oppressor. That shit doesn’t fly when we’re talking about sexism, and it sure as hell doesn’t fly in this situation.
Whether or not a person wants to stick around and try to educate the person oppressing them is their choice and if you really believe in being unifying rather than dismissive, you would respect that choice.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Sorry, fucked up my tags.
As tekanji said, it only becomes a bad idea when you insist that everyone follow those principles. I don’t agree with that. We all have different reactions when we encounter bigoted behavior based on our own personal experiences with bigotry, and often even just based on how we’re feeling that day. It’s wrong to presume that your way of handling it is the best way of handling it for everyone, and it’s also dismissive of the anger and pain that many experience when they encounter bigotry. Sometimes asking them to put away their anger and respond in a manner that will be constructive for the offender really is asking too much. Here is a really good post about why the expectation that we be polite when we’re offended is privileged. I highly recommend reading it if you’d like to get a better idea of what it is that I find problematic about your statement.
This sounds like victim-blaming. Feminism is not further weakened by people who are pissed the fuck off by the bigotry that they encounter within the movement. It is not their responsibility to make feminism less racist, ableist, etc. Feminism is weakened by the racists and the ableists, not the other way around. If their is fallout from the conflict that arises between these two camps, then it is the fault of the racist and ableist camp for being racist and ableist in the first place, not from the people who took issue with their racism and ableism no matter how they chose to address their complaints.
Not calling yourself a feminist doesn’t mean you’re not still working on women’s issues. I responded to this more in depth over at Shrub.
I agree with this completely except for your use of the word “need.” Who are you to presume that you know what oppressed people “need” to do? Sure, I do pretty much what you suggested here–I stay the hell away from Pandagon and other dens of racist feminists, sticking to the feminist spaces that don’t support bigotry. But it’s my choice to respond in that manner. Someone else’s choice to say fuck it to the feminist label in response to supposed allies who refuse to get it is just as valid as your or my choice to stay.
Yes, but what I am saying is that it it is not the responsibility of the oppressed to assist in bridging those gaps. Patience and good faith only last for so long and it’s never the duty of the oppressed to educate their oppressors. If they choose to do so, awesome! Hopefully someone will learn from it. But if they don’t want to, or have tried enough times already and have been repeatedly shot down, or if for whatever reason they just don’t have the patience to deal with racism, etc. on that particular day or don’t feel like extending good faith to their oppressor–there is nothing wrong with that. It is okay for them to just walk away or to tell their oppressor in no uncertain terms they they were racist, etc. That may not be the most constructive response for their oppressor, but again, that’s really not the problem of the oppressed. It’s not their job to lift up their oppressors and help them onto the path of being a decent person. The burden for making feminism an inclusive movement should not rest on the backs of the oppressed.
Leaving behind the feminist label does not necessarily mean that one is denouncing every single feminist out there. I am getting the impression that you take it personally when someone says they don’t want to call themselves a feminist anymore, as though it is a personal slight on you for remaining a feminist. That’s really not what is happening when women say they want out of feminism. This is also something that I expanded upon further in my comment over at Shrub. To add to that, I would also say: please stop making it about you. If someone doesn’t want to be associated with the feminist label anymore, it’s not about you unless you are one of the ones that contributed to their reasons for leaving. If you are the kind of feminist who is actively working towards making feminism more inclusive, then why get offended? You’re not the one they’re upset with, so why take it personally? When we take the patriarchy to task, are we accusing every single member of the male gender of being a deeply misogynist monster that wants to keep women in the kitchen for all eternity? No, and if they complain that we are, we tell them to get over it cause if they are truly our ally, then it’s not about them.
And even if someone out there does denounce all feminists everywhere when they leave feminism, is it really that horrible? If they have experienced something so terrible within the feminist movement that they feel that way, then honestly I am just more likely to get even angrier with the bigotry that made them feel that way and not at them for targeting me with their anger.
Yes. But that’s my choice. And I will not make that choice for anyone but myself.
September 28th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Again, it’s not being dismissive when the very. first. part of the “prayer” is that people have a duty to listen when someone calls you on behavior that is disempowering. There is nothing dismissive about “When someone says you are being ____ist, you need to take on what they say with honesty.”
This is a difficult thing to do. This is why I’m saying that if you are calling someone on their behavior, you have a duty to do so in a way that will make the most positive impact.
I’m not saying “ignore.” Never EVER do I say ignore. And I don’t think it should be ignored. If I’m using language or actions that marginalize WOC, homosexuals, or the disabled, I want to know about it, and I want to understand what the dealy-o is, not be told that I’m a horrible human being and that I’ve just made someone quit feminism. If I felt it should be ignored, I would not have made the first point, which is that we have a duty to our sisters to better ourselves and treat them with respect.
I think you’re confusing something here. If you’re oppressed, and the oppressor is someone who could understand the situation but doesn’t based on ignorance and the vestiges of privilege, then you absolutely should educate the oppressor. If they choose to ignore that education, then that’s another matter. If someone is an oppressor and they are not interested in understanding or being educated, then there’s nothing to be done about it. But to expect people to magically understand all intersections of oppression by some sort of self-inflicted socratic method is naive. People need to educate each other. That’s how progress is made.
And no, I’ve said again and again that someone doesn’t have to stick around a person or a group that is oppressing them when it’s clear that they’re not getting it.
And oliemoon — you are absolutely welcome to stay away from Pandagon if you feel that it’s a racist site– but it’s important to point out two things: 1) I don’t believe Pandagon is a “feminist” site, it’s a progressive site with a very outspoken feminist at the helm. If you’re saying “I’m not going to Pandagon because of past racist events” that’s fine, but if you’re saying “I’m staying off Pandagon, and Feministe, and Feministing, and The F-Word, etc, because of past racist events over at Pandagon,” that’s doing a serious disservice to all feminists who do NOT call Pandagon their home base (I’m not going to go further than that for confidentiality reasons). 2) To imply that Pandagon is a “racist” site because of past incidents is a real disservice to the other bloggers there, two of whom blog passionately about civil rights issues. Your issue is with one of the bloggers there, not the whole site. You are perfectly willing to say “I’m not going to that site because of that blogger.” But leave the other bloggers to their own decisions. I have a hard time believing that they would stay if they felt that the site was a racist site, and that the blogger in question was “beyond help.”
And again, the expectation that we be “polite” is a double-edged sword.
I don’t feel it’s fair, or wise, to tell one group “you have to listen quietly and honestly and take on their criticisms with an open mind” and tell another group “Full volley, go apeshit and rip that person a new one when they offend you.” It’s just not how progress is made.
September 28th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
There’s not. I specifically left that part of the prayer out of my critique because I have no issue with it, and tekanji merely said that it was problematic that you did not seem to be adhering to that aspect of your prayer yourself. And I second that it’s ironic that you keep repeating this part of your prayer when you yourself refuse to follow it.
But I will try this again.
I do not share solidarity with every woman who calls herself a feminist just because she is a feminist. Someone who is racist, ableist, transphobic, etc. is not my sister. I have no duty, no obligation to “help” them. My only duty is to myself, and do whatever I feel is necessary to protect myself in the face of their bigotry. If I want to help educate them, then that is my prerogative, not my responsibility. The “duty” to educate lies with allies who belong to said oppressor’s group. When you say that it is the responsibility of the oppressed to educate their oppressor, the flipside of that is that the oppressed are blamed for their oppression. As in, if they don’t speak up, it is then their fault that their oppressors aren’t changing and the oppression isn’t ending. I do not agree with this framework of responsibility.
But who gets to decided if the oppressor is “someone who could understand the situation”? That’s so subjective. We might agree that a troll from Kotaku does not fall into that category, but what about Marcotte? I would say that she definitely does not fall into that category, but you might disagree.
If you think this, then why do you have such a problem with some women deciding that they no longer belong to the group called “feminists”? If their sum experience with feminism has been that it’s racist, etc. then it follows that their decision to leave feminism is in line with your principles. Saying that they’re not being fair to all the non-racist feminists out there is privileged, because it’s putting your feelings over their experiences. Racism is an endemic enough problem in feminism that I think it is entirely likely that a woman’s sum experience with it could be enough to decide that the racism is too much for her to overcome and for her own health and well being she should leave. Maybe there are spaces within feminism where she would feel safe, but if her experience has been traumatic enough for her to leave, why force her back into a situation where she already feels threatened and isolated? That’s privilege in action, to think that your way is the best way for all women. To think that if you can cope with the racism, ableism etc. in feminism and continue your work to improve it that all women can or should do as you do.
RE: Pandagon. No, my issue is with the whole site. I don’t appreciate you telling me what my “issue” with it is, and I really don’t appreciate having a white person tell me what is and isn’t racist in general just for the record. Maybe not everyone who contributes there is racist, but to some degree they have supported racism in the past. Maybe some people there are actively working to clean up the racism amongst the Pandagon population. If they are, good on them, they are doing the work that needs to be done there and I can support them without supporting the site. But as far as I am concerned, support for racism is racism in of itself, and the level of support that I saw for that particular racist blogger last spring was enough for me to determine that Pandagon was home to many racist feminists and that I did not belong there. Yanno, I am sure that there are some Republicans who aren’t bigoted, but as long as they keep voting to put bigots in office I don’t think I am out of line in condemning the party as a whole. Same for Pandagon.
Is this what the real issue is here? Your original post, and what I took issue with, was the complaint about people who choose to not call themselves feminists anymore. Now you seem to have switched the topic to the nature of progressive education. Is it both? Personally, I don’t think it’s fair to tell an oppressed person how they “should” react when faced with oppression at all. I think that’s up to the individual and the situation, and I would never try and force my way of handling oppression on anyone else. I support oppressed people doing whatever it is that they need to do in order to deal with their oppression in a healthy manner for themselves (so long as it is withing the scope of the law). Yes, progress needs to be made, but it is not the responsibility of the oppressed to ensure that it is constantly being made. Their “duty” is to take care of themselves, not their oppressor. Honestly, we’ve got enough shit to worry about without having to make sure that we’re not stepping on the toes of our oppressors or worry that we’re not doing enough to help to help them become decent human beings all the time.
If someone is really receptive to being our ally, and all they need is a little education to show them the way, then chances are that 1) they’ve got friends who are real allies to us who can help them along and educate them and/or 2) they are intelligent enough to look up anti-oppression resources on the internet and educate themselves.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Mighty Ponygirl, appears to me that you think this is only meta discussion about anti-oppression education and identifying/not identifying with labels and movements, rather than also one in which the participants are calling you out on your privilege. Your comment to the Pandagon example shows that you may be taking this a little personally instead of seeing that your reaction is a privileged one.
You have continued to ignore the idea, which both tekanji and oliemoon have stated more than once, that marginalised feminists have probably done all they could — swallowed their rage for the goal of greater understanding, to explain and educate again and again and again. But they have continued to meet with the same privileged reactions from mainstream feminists over and over and over, from people who are supposed to understand and commiserate and be their allies. The feminists who distance themselves from being labeled a feminist have valid reasons for doing so. The oppressed have no obligation to educate their oppressors. The onus should be on the privileged groups to work with the marginalised and oppressed to understand their own privilege.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Dude, MP, seriously? When people say that they feel you are being dismissive, saying, “I’m not being dismissive” and continuing to ignore their arguments and clarifications is dismissive in of itself. Why is it so hard for you to admit that maybe you do bear some responsibility for the negative reaction you’ve gotten from me and other feminists?
September 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
On the one hand, you say that my reaction is privileged. On the other hand, you say that I’m taking this too personally. And I’m trying to say this isn’t about me.
I didn’t bring up the Pandagon example, Oliemoon did, and while I feel it’s important to point out that Pandagon is not a “racist feminist site.” I’m not apologizing for what happened there.
That’s the distinction here.
At no point am I apologizing for the transgressions of privileged feminists. But to assume that there’s not work being done, that it’s a hopeless cause, and that feminism is not worth the fight because of these transgressions, then how is anything, anywhere, worth fighting for? Understanding oppression is a process. If you want to stay away from Pandagon because of what happened, you are totally within your right.
No one is trying to make you go back to Pandagon.
But when I look and see how Feministe and Feministing (who I consider much more “feminist” sites by virtue of the primacy of their mission), as well as the countless other feminist sites, have tackled cross-oppression issues, and challenged their readers to broaden their understanding of feminism to include women of all walks, you’ll forgive me if I can’t sign on to this notion that feminism is a toxic philosophy that marginalizes non-rich-white-women. There are other forums and there will always be allies within the feminist movement who are willing to listen and understand an oppression that they don’t necessarily experience, and that the ranks of those women are growing and if they don’t already outpace the women so steeped in their privilege that they make feminism hostile to women outside of their own experience, they soon will. And I find it dismissive to ignore the work of those women so that you can declare that the grand experiment of feminism is a failure and you’re not going to identify with those who struggle for women’s rights anymore.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:15 am
On the one hand, you say that my reaction is privileged. On the other hand, you say that I’m taking this too personally. And I’m trying to say this isn’t about me.
I didn’t bring up the Pandagon example, Oliemoon did, and while I feel it’s important to point out that Pandagon is not a “racist feminist site.” I’m not apologizing for what happened there.
That’s the distinction here.
At no point am I apologizing for the transgressions of privileged feminists.
In fact, I find it funny that
Xena grant me the courage to work towards equality for all women, everywhere, regardless of their particular difference to me as a woman working for my equality. When someone points out that my behavior is dismissive or disempowering, grant me the serenity to not throw a giant shit fit and act like a complete tool.
Is interpreted as “women who feel marginalized need to STFU.” This isn’t about my privilege for thinking that we need to listen to and respect each other. This is about something else entirely.
But to assume that there’s not work being done, that it’s a hopeless cause, and that feminism is not worth the fight because of these transgressions, then how is anything, anywhere, worth fighting for? Understanding oppression is a process. If you want to stay away from Pandagon because of what happened, you are totally within your right.
No one is trying to make you go back to Pandagon.
But when I look and see how Feministe and Feministing (who I consider much more “feminist” sites by virtue of the primacy of their mission), as well as the countless other feminist sites, have tackled cross-oppression issues, and challenged their readers to broaden their understanding of feminism to include women of all walks, you’ll forgive me if I can’t sign on to this notion that feminism is a toxic philosophy that marginalizes non-rich-white-women. There are other forums and there will always be allies within the feminist movement who are willing to listen and understand an oppression that they don’t necessarily experience, and that the ranks of those women are growing and if they don’t already outpace the women so steeped in their privilege that they make feminism hostile to women outside of their own experience, they soon will. And I find it dismissive to ignore the work of those women so that you can declare that the grand experiment of feminism is a failure and you’re not going to identify with those who struggle for women’s rights anymore.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Not calling oneself a feminist =/= assuming that feminism is a hopeless cause.
Not calling oneself a feminist =/=calling feminism a “toxic philosophy.”
Not calling oneself a feminist =/= declaring feminism a failure. (
Not calling oneself a feminist =/= not identifying with those who struggle for women’s rights.
Please explain to me how Renee of Womanist Musings is doing a disservice to anti-oppression feminists everywhere by calling herself a womanist. Please explain to me how her identification with womanism is tantamount to decrying feminism as a hopeless cause, a toxic philosophy or a failure when she actively participates in and supports various feminist sites. Please explain to me how calling herself a womanist means she does not identify with those who struggle for women’s rights, when she includes several feminist-identified blogs on her blogroll. I am dead serious here. I would really like it if you could explain your position to me, keeping in mind the work of women like Renee. I honestly do not understand how or why you are denying the work that womanists, for example, do and pointing the finger at people like them and saying that they are hurting the the fight for gender equality by not identifying as feminists.
And I’ll just point out here that brinstar, tekanji and I all do identify as feminists. I can’t speak for the others, but I don’t think that feminism is doomed to failure, that it is inherently toxic or that it is not worth the fight to make feminism a more inclusive movement.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:07 am
OK, first of all, sorry for all of the edited extra-posting. I’ve been having some problems with the site this morning.
Now, to your point.
I deal with people all the time who believe that feminists are … well, to cut through the homophobia and fat-phobia, let’s just say that they believe that feminists want to violently overthrow men and install themselves as superior to men. I think we can all agree that this is, apart from being wrong, is a persistent, harmful stereotype that the enemies of equality employ in order to diminish the true cause of feminism, which is the equality of women and men.
When you say “I’m not a feminist, I’m a _____” that invites the inevitable questions of “why the distinction.” And if your response is “because I found feminism to be racist, ablist, homophobic, &c, and I couldn’t ally myself with them anymore,” it may not be the same sort of rationale behind calling feminists a bunch of hairy-legged, man-hating bulldykes, but it tars all feminists in much the same way. (and FTR, no, I’ve never felt the need to pipe up and whine “but I’m *not* a hairy-legged, man-hating bulldyke!” because I felt that it would be giving too much credit to the people who are implying that there’s something wrong with being a radical lesbian feminist). The word “feminist” is already such a bad word because people want to ascribe individual behaviors that scare them to the entire group. To give those people more ammunition by saying “it’s also a racist, ablist, classist, transphobic, homophobic organization that marginalizes anyone who isn’t a rich white woman” is just suicidal (yes, I’m talking about something specific here that happened a week ago on another blog). I would really HOPE that other civil rights organizations don’t experience this sort of stuff. If someone prominent in the civil rights movement said something stunningly sexist, I would be incredibly dismayed, but I would be just as dismayed to hear a WOC say “I no longer work for civil rights because I see too much sexism in the organized civil rights movement.” I appreciate the sentiment, but by staying in the organized civil rights movement, she lends her voice to the loudest, strongest means of change for people of color. She can work to get better leaders involved or maybe even educate the leaders that are there, but if she leaves, that’s one less voice lending strength. However (and this is an important point), when I see feminists engage in behavior that is disempowering to WOC, I see myself as exactly where I need to be. Not necessary where I want to be (It would be nice if we could all just figure this shit out once and for all), but I *have* engaged other feminists in the manner I’ve described about the situation, and I know I’m not alone. I can’t say from Adam whether or not I had any success with it… but I have good reason to suspect that I have been an agent for positive change within the movement that needs as many women in it as possible.
I am not going to argue that there are racist, classist, ablist feminists out there who are hurting the movement. But I really feel that’s why it’s more important that women who are not racist, ablist, homophobic, transphobic, etc, to make our voices heard that these people do NOT speak for the movement.
And looking back, I worry that I might have deleted one of your comments in my attempt to cull out my spam comments. I’m very sorry if I’ve done that — I didn’t intend that at all.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Something else I want to point out: it is really disappointing and upsetting that you keep saying that we need to approach each other with patience and understanding, to do our best to bridge the gaps between us as feminists, and while I feel like I have been making a good faith effort to do just that, you don’t seem to be doing so yourself. I will admit that I could have phrased some of my comments better, but honestly, the things you have been saying here have been making me incredibly angry. That does not justify any poor or inappropriate choice of word on my part (and for those instances, I apologize), but rather, my point is that I have been trying to be as polite as possible in this discussion–despite my anger and frustration, whereas in your latest comment you have deliberately used hyperbole to mock those of us who disagree with you. You have also pointedly ignored several of the rebuttals that we have made to your claims.
The only reason I am even trying to hash this out here with you is because I have found Feminist Gamers to be a great space and a valuable resource over the past year and I think it is worth it to try and explain why I think your position is problematic and privileged. But it hurts and it makes it harder when you respond in bad faith with rude and condescending replies. I know that you are probably also hurt and angry about the disagreement with your position here, but I don’t know what else I can do expect to continue to debate my points as politely as I can and hope that you will listen.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:19 am
oliemoon — I’m upset because I feel that you’ve been misconstruing what I’m saying regarding how marginalized groups should respond to disempowering behavior from within the feminist movement. I am not saying that they need to pipe down and shut up and hope that things will get better.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
MP: And can you not understand that perhaps part of our frustration comes from a similar issue: that you are ignoring and misconstruing our attempts to explain to you things such as 1) feminist-feeling women’s dissatisfaction with the mainstream feminist movement is a systematic problem, not a few isolated incidents that can be easily ignored; 2) it is contrary to the goals stated in your prayer to tell women who are uneasy with the feminist label that they are bad/wrong (which is what you’re doing); and 3) that you’re continually conflating a person deciding that they no longer feel that the benefits of identifying as feminist outweigh the negatives (see #1) as saying that feminism and feminists as a whole are bad/evil/worthless/whatever.
Ultimately, I am really upset because you continue to justify attacking feminists and feminist-minded women for their perfectly valid choices. I’m upset that you keep saying, “I don’t understand why my serenity prayer caused such anger, because of this and this wording” ignoring the fact that it wasn’t that wording, but other wording (pointed out at Shrub and Iris) that caused the problem. Just because you put something non-divisive into a post with divisive wording doesn’t make the problematic phrases any less problematic.
I’ve said this several times now, but if you really want to put your money where your mouth is and prove that unity is important, you need to stop arguing and think about what the rest of us have been saying. You need to go to blogs of women who have expressed a dissatisfaction with feminism, read up on some of the more well-known blowouts, and then think to yourself, “How have I contributed to this problem? What can I do to help make women like these feel welcome in the movement again?” As long as you are chiding us like we’re little children, it doesn’t matter how many times you say, “But I just want us all to get along!” because your actions will prove otherwise.
Remember that with stuff like this, intent is only part of the equation. You obviously intend well, but right now your actions are aligning you with the parts of the movement that have oppressed women to the point where they’ve been driven away.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I’m sorry that I have upset you.
The problem with the above statement, that I see, is that you have decided that you know how marginalized groups should respond to oppression. This is not okay for a variety of reasons. To begin with, every person is different, every situation is different and to say that there is one legitimate and appropriate reaction that is applicable in all cases disregards all of these differences in experience and perception and implies that your conclusion, which you have come to based on your own experiences in dealing with oppression, is the right way, the only way. This becomes especially problematic when you consider that many of the women who are leaving feminism are coming from marginalized groups that you do not belong to–when you tell them that they are doing the wrong thing, that they should be doing what you say, you are disrespecting their choice. You are in effect saying that whatever experiences that they have had that have led them to that decision are irrelevant, and you are doing so from a position of privilege.
This is why is sounds like “STFU.” By saying that women should stay feminists no matter what and keep working to make it better, you’re telling them that when they say that they have had enough of the racism, etc. when they say that they no longer feel that feminism is the right movement for them (and again, this is a matter of perception–you and I obviously think that there is a place for everyone within feminism, but that is based on our own experiences and perception of the movement. Other people will perceive the situation differently, or have had different experiences that will lead them to different conclusions. We need to respect that), when they are saying that feminism is hurting them, and you say “Here is what you should do, here is how you should respond,” you are ignoring all the things that they are telling you and you are silencing their voices. The women leaving feminism have reasons for doing so and if we really want to be allies to them, we need to listen to their reasons and respect their decision, not tell them what we think they “should” be doing. They already know how to do what is best for them, they don’t need you or me to tell them.
And really, that’s what it comes down to. Someone leaving feminism is doing what is best for them. It may not be the best for the movement as a whole–but if in their experience, the movement as a whole has failed them, why should they owe their allegiance to a movement that they don’t believe supports them? It’s true that they could probably find spaces within feminism that are more inclusive, but what if they aren’t aware that these spaces exist? What if just the label “feminist” has simply become too loaded for them? What if they just need a break from it all to regroup and decide the best way forward? There are so many reasons why someone could choose to leave feminism, and they don’t all necessarily mean that said person is pointing a finger at every single feminist and saying “You are the problem.” We should let them do what they think will be best for themselves, what they have decided is empowering to them and not try and tell them what we think is best.
Moreover, when you characterize their decision to leave feminism as getting upset because some random internet feminist said “retard,” you are being incredibly dismissive about their actual reasons for leaving. I sincerely doubt that someone is going to wake up one day, click on a comment thread at Feministe and say “That’s it feminism, commentor #52 called something they don’t like “retarded,” I’m out of here!” When you frame it in those terms, however, you’re doing a real disservice to their actual experiences with ablism within the feminist movement and what was likely a difficult decision for them to leave. You are mocking their decision and deriding their behavior. That is very disempowering.
To me, this reads as victim blaming. One, the people leaving feminism are not creating said “ammunition,” it is the people who are being racist, ablist, classist, transphobic and homophobic that are creating the rift and bear responsibility for the situation and the repercussions. Two, I don’t really think it really give “more” ammunition. Bigots aren’t generally interested in debating us on the facts; they’re more interested in fighting with the strawfeminists that exist only in their head. Whether we give them any ammunition or not, they will continue to do, say and believe the bigoted garbage that they want to believe. If Jessica Chobot and women like her suddenly disappeared, do you think the “gamer girls are attention whores” BS that a lot of gamers across the board subscribe to would suddenly end?
But what you seem to be missing is that maybe said woman sees the situation differently from you. Maybe she thinks that the civil rights movement, in denying gender equality, is not working to real change that is going to be useful for her or many other women. Maybe she doesn’t see the movement as working toward real change for POC everywhere, but just toward equality for a select few POC that meet certain standards. Maybe she thinks that it will be more empowering to her and others, and more productive, to generate a new, more inclusive movement. Maybe from where you and I are sitting from within the civil rights movement that seems silly and defeatist, but when she’s already experienced enough shit at the hands of civil rights leaders, I hardly think it is appropriate for folks like us that align ourselves with those who have hurt her to try and tell her what’s what.
I, for one, believe wholeheartedly that you have been an agent of positive change for gamers and within the feminist movement. But your perception that this is where you need to be…that is entirely your own. Just because you feel that this is where you need to be and this is the work that you need to be doing doesn’t mean that others can, will or should share your sentiments regarding their own position within feminism, or that they will necessarily share your perception of the movement and what is the best course for you to take. I applaud the choices you have made for yourself, I just wish you would respect the choices of others as well. What works for you may not work for them. What you see, they may not see, or vice versa. Maybe they are seeing things that you don’t see, and that is entirely possible given your position of privilege within feminism (and mine as well).
September 30th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Tekanji — I will ALWAYS vehemently disagree that we should just accept that feminism is going to piss off women who will want to leave and disavow themselves from the movement.
I’m just never going to agree on that.
And I’m not going to “roll over” on this one. This isn’t about me “not putting my money where my mouth is,” I’m completely sympathetic to people who feel that there have been feminists who have done them wrong. At no point am I saying “your feeling of oppression is wrong, and you need to shut up and just take it because the larger cause of feminism is more important.” What I am saying is “your feelings of oppression are important, and people should listen to you when you say you feel marginalized. But please keep in mind that the people who are marginalizing and oppressing you are not doing so in my name, or in the name of most feminists, and we are trying to work to make feminism more egalitarian, and because people are always coming to feminism, there will always be work to do to overcome ignorance and privilege.”
Don’t you see that by declaring feminism to be not worth it because of the racism and sexism, the hard work of most feminists to overcome that is minimized? It’s not dismissive to stand up and be counted and point out that there are a lot of women trying to overcome these issues.
And Oliemoon, as I’d already said, I was responding to a specific post on a specific thread on a feminist blog: in which the writer was literally saying “don’t call feminists a bunch of hairy-legged bulldykes, there are so many ways you could attack feminism for its racism and classism and fatphobia!” That to me is suicidal. There is no reason to hand ammunition like that to your enemies. It may be true that feminism has these problems, but you don’t point out your weak spot to someone intent on destroying you unless you’re a Zelda boss.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Correct me if I am wrong here tekanji, but I think that what tekanji was saying is that if a woman has decided that she no longer wants to identify as a feminist then we need to accept that it was her choice, and respect that choice. It’s not about accepting the notion that feminism is fatally flawed, it’s about accepting and respecting another woman’s choice.
I disagree. In your prayer you specifically say: “When someone points out that my behavior is dismissive or disempowering, grant me the serenity to not throw a giant shit fit and act like a complete tool.”
And yet, you’ve got two WOC/three queers here telling you that what you are doing is dismissive and disempowering and privileged. And what are you doing? You are refusing to listen to us.
Now, I am not saying that you are refusing to listen to us just because you don’t agree with us. I am saying that you are not listening because we have all presented multiple critiques of your arguments that you refuse to engage with. This has roughly been the pattern on this thread: You say X, we say we disagree with X because of Y, you ignore Y without comment and repeat X. What else am I to take from this except that you are not listening? That you are not listening despite the fact that you have repeatedly said that you consider it to be your responsibility and duty to listen to others when they have called you out?
Example: You have said that women leaving feminism are doing a disservice to anti-oppression feminists. I responded to that at the end of my comment here. You chose to not respond to that part of my comment, which would be fine except later you restated the message that leaving feminism behind is dismissive to those who are working to make feminism more inclusive. And I thought, “Well damn, I thought I had already addressed that point but maybe she missed it.” So I responded to that argument of yours here. Again, you chose to not engage with my rebuttal to your argument. tekanji then specifically pointed out that you were ignoring us when we argued that we didn’t think leaving feminism meant one was denouncing all feminists as worthless here. I again repeated this sentiment in this comment. And yet, your latest reply says this:
We have already addressed these statements. We have already explained why we don’t think leaving feminism means a woman is ignoring, blaming or minimizing the anti-oppression feminists who remain. If you don’t agree with what we have said, then engage with us and explain why you think our arguments are wrong. Please don’t just ignore what we are saying and repeat your talking points as though they are fact when we have already presented our arguments against them. It’s dismissive. It indicates that you are not listening.
In the end, you don’t have to agree with us. But if you want to live up to the spirit of your prayer, you would at the very least be listening. And as it is abundantly clear that you are not doing so, I am starting to wonder why I am devoting so much time and energy into this discussion with you. I really do care a lot about this issue, which why I have been so effusive in this thread and elsewhere, but I really do feel like you have just been ignoring me all along.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I am listening. I just don’t agree with what you’re saying.
I’m not throwing a shit fit, I’m disagreeing with you.
The nut of this problem is whether or not someone should leave feminism because feminists that they disagree with have more of a voice in the movement than feminists that are allied with them. Whether or not that voice is actual or perceived.
When Geraldine Ferraro pops off with something completely racist, you could say that she’s more prominent a voice and a feminist than say, Samhita over at Feministing, but that doesn’t mean that she speaks for all feminists, or even that feminists agree with her, or that she’s even a prominent voice in The Feminist Movement. I would say that more feminists are likely to listen to and agree with Samhita than they are with Geraldine. There is a segment that will agree with Ferraro, but there is a greater segment that says “WTF was that?!” No, they don’t have the mic trained on them like Ferraro does, but I honestly don’t know that we can rely on the mainstream media to give attention to the majority feminist voice that wants equality and egalitarian discourse, because they are invested in feminism’s failure and they will always look to amplify the scandalous and wrong-headed statements.
Wanda Sykes was recently on Leno talking about Sarah Palin. In one breath, she reaffirmed that she was a feminist, and then in the same breath she called Sarah Palin “crazy.” Now, I have a hard time believing that Wanda would tollerate any racist bullshit from a fellow feminist or no, but she is obviously has a blind spot wrt ablism.
It’s frustrating for me to see people use those terms, even as I struggle to purge words like “crazy” and “nuts” and “retarded” from my own lexicon. Maybe no one has ever talked to Wanda about ablism before and she’s honestly just ignorant about how the word is harmful. Maybe someone’s talked to her about it but she doesn’t understand what’s problematic about it because she thinks it’s a completely different context and not meant as a slur against people with mental illness and she’s just not there yet. Maybe she’s working on it and after the interview she thought back about how she said it and groaned inside that she said it. I don’t know. If I had an opportunity to talk to her about it, I wouldn’t assume that she just hated people who were mentally ill, or that she’s a bad feminist or that she’s pushing me out of feminism if she doesn’t get it. And by approaching it that way, I would hope that she would listen and not get defensive.
A lot of progress happens internally. If you try to enlighten someone, they might not have a Come To Jesus right before your eyes. Real understanding often happens later on, when the person is turning over what was said. If you go on the attack, the person is going to spend that mental energy justifying themselves and writing you off as unreasonable, “too p.c,” etc, instead of taking on what you say.
I am living up to my end of the spirit of the prayer. I am listening to what you’re saying, I just don’t find the arguments a good reason to bury feminism, and to let good feminists leave the movement.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Yanno, I specifically said why I felt that you were not listening and why it wasn’t because you weren’t agreeing with me. And I gave a very specific example that demonstrated why I felt you weren’t listening. And again, you completely blew over my reasons and ignored me.
No, it is not. The nut of this problem is that you think it is okay for you to tell oppressed women what they should or should not do.
RE: Sykes example:
I strongly feel that you are not listening.
Go back to where brinstar said:
Or where I said:
Or where tekanji said:
How can you say that you are listening when we have said all of that, and then you turn around and present a fake scenario in which you don’t blow up at Wanda Sykes and walk away from feminism because she said “crazy” and act as though your scenario represents the same dilemma faced by all the women who are leaving feminism?
I have already said that the women leaving feminism are not leaving because they think one particular racist feminist represents all feminists and that all of feminism is therefore racist. I have already said that women leaving feminism are not leaving because of a one-time incident where someone like Sykes said something ablist. The women leaving are, in all likelihood, intelligent and aware enough to know that there are a plethora of feminists in the movement who are committed to ending oppression in all of its forms. The women leaving are, in all likelihood, not leaving because of one-time, isolated instances of bigotry.
How does one educate without going on the attack, by your standards? I have been polite, I have carefully re-worded several of my comments before posting to remove traces of snark, I have had my partner check over my comments before posting them to see if my tone was rude or condescending, I have approached each reply to you with good faith while hoping that I would receive good faith from you in return, I have apologized twice for any ill will I may have caused, I have acknowledged your feelings (though I have received no such acknowledgment in return) and have done my best to keep them in mind when responding, I have been patient in explaining my point of view, in most cases multiple times. And in response, you have not taken on most of what I have had to say. Given that you don’t seem to be really listening (see my example in the last post–I repeat, this is not about you disagreeing, this is about you not engaging and then proceeding to actively ignore the points we raised), my guess is that you are probably spending most of your mental energy just trying to justify yourself, instead of actually reading and thinking about what we are saying.
.
If you were actually listening to what we were saying, then you would know that we have never once advocated burying feminism. Ever. We are all feminists here.
You are not listening because you are not engaging with what we are saying; you are ignoring our arguments and talking over us.
If you are actually listening to us, then address our arguments and tell us why we’re wrong. Like here, for example. Just tell me why you think the things that I said in that post were wrong. I am literally asking here for you to explain to me why I am wrong because you haven’t done that yet. You keep saying that I am wrong, but not why.
You are spending most of your time arguing against what your preconceptions (see the Sykes example that you made up, that does not in any way, shape or form represent a real scenario in which any former-feminist that I know ended up leaving the movement). You are mis characterizing the women that you don’t agree with, and then attacking that mis characterization. You’re fighting strawformer-feminists.
At this point, I am just wondering: do you honestly not care that what you are doing is incredibly disempowering to me? Do you honestly not care that I was completely and utterly dismayed when I first read the OP, and that it is because my feelings of hurt were so strong on this issue that I have devoted so much time and energy to this discussion? I don’t even belong to the category of people that you are criticizing and I feel sick over this. Or do you think that I am just being too unreasonable, too “PC” or just trying to play the victim?
This isn’t a debate, this isn’t a game. Mighty Ponygirl, the things you are doing and saying: they hurt. They really, honestly do.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
MP: Okay, I’m not going to get through to you, I see that. The last thing I want to point out is that this is the brick wall of privilege that women who get fed up with feminism encounter over and over again. They say, “I am being oppressed. Please check your privilege; please listen to I, and other women like me are saying,” and they’re met with, “I AM listening!” when obviously the only thing the other person is listening to is their own privilege telling them they are right.
At no time did you acknowledge the validity of my — and oliemoon’s, and brinstar’s, and a whole host of other people’s — interpretation of certain parts of your arguments as dismissive. At no point did you stop yourself and say, “I think I’m right, but maybe I should back off and do my research. Maybe I should try to understand why they feel this way.” On top of that, you’ve hit a whole lot of the privilege pitfalls that I discuss in my “Check my WHAT?” post… more, actually, than some of the feminists I’ve dealt with who refuse to see intersectionality (or certain parts of intersectionality) have.
But, I gotta tell you, I’m not surprised. More often than not, that’s what I encounter. More often than not, I spend hours engaging with feminists, trying to get them to look beyond their own oppression and see the oppression of others, only to find out that they — like you — are more interested in being right than actually understanding how others experience oppression.
That is the problem I have with feminism and feminists. That is what I encounter all too often, even from feminists who otherwise do good work. That is why as time goes on I identify less with the feminist movement and more with the general anti-oppression movement. You, MP, are part of the problem. Your privilege, your attitude, and your inability to acknowledge that your stances are hurtful and perhaps coming from a position of privilege and ignorance rather. And until you acknowledge that, you are not my ally.
I wish you all the best, but I’m done with you and your site.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Very well.
I have stated, over and over again, that I am not suggesting that marginalized people do not experience oppression in feminism. I have stated, over and over again, that we need to take those concerns seriously and not dismiss them. I would never reply to a woman who felt that she had been marginalized that she was just dreaming it or being overly-sensitive or playing the victim. I don’t know how many other ways to put it that you could understand. I would take her concerns seriously and try to understand them the best I was able and work to end that in good faith. But I would not tell her “happy trails” if she wanted to leave feminism over it.
I’m not “more interested in being right than actually understanding how others experience oppression.” I am not at any point saying “they are not being oppressed, or they shouldn’t feel that they are being oppressed.” I’m not arguing that the oppression exists, I’m arguing what we should do about it.
And yeah, I’m sure I am part of the problem, because I feel very strongly that feminism needs to do better, and not let these people go and just throw up our hands and say “you’re right, we’re a racist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, ablist institution. Off you go then, wish it could have turned out different.” That can only mean that I don’t take their feelings of oppression seriously. And when I see feminists hand trolls ammunition by asserting that feminism should be attacked from without because of these problems that we have, I’m part of the problem because I don’t feel it’s fair to all of the feminists out there who are working to repair these problems to be attacked this way.
Oliemoon — I am listening to you just like you are listening to me. We just aren’t agreeing. It isn’t that I’m not explaining, you just aren’t agreeing with me. That’s fine… but please stop asserting that I’m not listening. I am.
The point about Wanda Sykes was not that I fantasize about educating her… it was to illustrate that we are none of us perfect and that we all have our blind spots. And I could totally understand how exhasperated and frustrated a feminist who was involved in anti-ablism activism would be to hear her use the term “crazy” for cheap laughs in the same breath she was identifying as a feminist. The sort of thing that happened on Leno could have easily been the Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back for an anti-ablism feminist. To hear one more feminist use that term, to feel like you’re beating your head against a wall, there’s going to be a situation where you want to throw up your hands and say “that’s it, I’m done.” The point is that when you do that, you’re writing off the feminist movement for the actions of people that are on their own journey, people who can only be controlled by themselves, and I can’t get behind that. I just can’t. Even if Tekanji is right and I’m a huge tool who minimizes and dismisses the oppression of other feminists, I can’t get behind anyone saying “feminism (which contains Pam, Samhita, Jill, Holly, Courtney, Shark-Fu, Karynthia, and countless others) isn’t for me, Pony at Feminist Gamers was the last straw.” I’m seriously not that important, and I don’t think anyone is that important when you look at what feminism hopes to accomplish for all women, everywhere.
Finally, I think that people will find that they have more allies in feminism than they do enemies. And I still assert that the “enemies” are pretty rare… most suffer from ignorance as a result of privilege. You can get through to most people, especially if you approach them as an ally and not as an attacker.