So, why do we blog, anyway? (I am deeply disturbed…)
I’m firing off this post quickly today because I’m seeing two growing trends that are troubling to me:
1) Bloggers becoming angry with their commenters
People are entitled to their opinions. I am a firm believer of this. One of the best things I have found about the feminist online community, both through this blog and through Twitter, is that these women (and men) aren’t afraid to tell you how they feel about a subject. And if you go a little far in one radical direction, there will always be someone there to gently pull you back to Earth. There are nuanced views of all civil rights movements; if you work for civil rights, you exist on a continuum, not on one side or another of a fence. Most people who, for example, say they are for women’s rights, do not agree with every little tenant of feminism. Maybe some are for closing the wage gap, but don’t want to talk about more radical issues. (I’m one of those, to be perfectly honest.) Maybe someone doesn’t believe what you said is right, or views it differently. There is nothing wrong with that. You might even be able to learn something from their views (if nothing else, how to argue your point to people who disagree).
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with a heated discussion, and there is nothing wrong with getting angry, but to shut down a commenter just because he/she has a different view than you (and expresses it in such a way as to add to the discussion, not if they’re just being a jerk) isn’t helping anybody. It’s closing down important discussions that need to happen in order to help people see that our views are valid and important. Why do we blog, anyway? This is a public space, a public forum, and we want our voices to be heard. Others want the same thing, which is why they comment in the first place. To squelch such a desire seems completely against feminist principles.
2) Feminists fighting for women’s rights at the expense of others who are equally oppressed
In disturbingly high numbers, I’m seeing several feminist writers/bloggers see the accomplishments of other minorities and saying things such as “Well, that’s great, but what about the women?” Don’t get me wrong here, women are not done fighting for equal rights, but any group who has been historically marginalized needs to fight for those basic human rights that we all desire. Why are we not celebrating all victories everywhere without a comment, however off-handed, that basically states, “That’s all well and good for them, but what about us?” If we are ever going to gain our human rights, we need to realize that this is not an us/them situation. It’s just us. Humans.
This whole post will probably make a lot of people mad, and I’m OK with that. Please feel free to express your anger in the comments section. (Feel free to agree with me, too, if you choose.)
There is nothing wrong with a heated discussion, and there is nothing wrong with getting angry, but to shut down a commenter just because he/she has a different view than you (and expresses it in such a way as to add to the discussion, not if they’re just being a jerk) isn’t helping anybody.
I generally try not to do this, but: they’re not erasing the words, just countering them strongly. People can still judge the original comment on their own strengths. Do you have any specific examples?
In disturbingly high numbers, I’m seeing several feminist writers/bloggers see the accomplishments of other minorities and saying things such as “Well, that’s great, but what about the women?”
Damn. Who?
I have to admit, I might fall into the second category. I am VERY supportive of ALL human rights accomplishments, and I am active in advocating for a range of rights. Because, yes, I recognize that it is all connected: racism, sexism, classism, etc.
However, I think there is a historical trend for women’s rights to always come last, and for women to always put other groups first. A good example is the abolition movement in the US. Women were leaders in the movement to abolish slavery, but when black Americans got the right to vote – it was just men, not women. And I believe there were sentiments at the time of: be patient, just wait, don’t press the women’s issue, let’s get this victory first. Women had to fight for decades more to win the right to vote.
And it’s interesting that you say, “several feminist writers/bloggers see the accomplishments of other minorities”.
“Other minorities”.
Women are NOT the minority! I think this is a key distinction. We are half of the population. And when you uplift half of the population – you uplift women of all different races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, etc – you get everybody.
But when there is a “win” for one “minority”, that doesn’t necessarily mean a win for women.
I think we should work together and celebrate all victories for human rights – but we shouldn’t do it blindly, thinking that helping minority groups (sorry, I’m not exactly comfortable with this term, I’m just not sure how else to phrase it) is a victory for all, a victory for women.
And as women, as feminists, I don’t think we should always put our fight for liberty and equality to the side to support other (albeit extremely important) efforts – even going beyond ‘minority’ issues such as racism to political issues such as children’s health, environmentalism, economic development, and so on.
(Me again 🙂 Just reread your post and I don’t think I fall into the ‘fighting for women’s rights at expense of others’ or ‘not celebrating’ category. Just wanted to clarify.
But I do feel the ‘what about us?’ feeling and the sense that one victory for some is not necessarily a victory for all, or for women. And that’s the perspective I was coming from when writing that comment.
While my actual posts can often be pretty angry or inciteful I usually do my best to be gentle in the comments (to the point that it looks a bit weird)
I rarely if ever back off unless serious flaws are found in my logic, but my persistence is just that. Persistence. I save the rage for the blog posts themselves to incite discussion and then in the discussion is where I put my civility hat on.
I can’t say if that’s the best way to do it and there’s been times where the prickly nature of my posts have alienated friends even with how polite I try to be in comments (my persistent nature doesn’t help that), but I do my best to avoid being mean to my readers.
On the second point, definitely agree, but it goes for everyone. Racial rights, trans rights, gay rights, poly rights, pagan rights, etc etc, pretty much every group has at least a few people who scoff at the victories gained by others with the “what about us?” expressed.
The only time that’s really ever justified is if the group in question actually screwed the upset group over to make it to that victory. Case in point: HRC’s quest for an ENDA for gay folk involved dropping support for trans folk. That’s messed up. That’s a betrayal. So I can see the victory of getting the orientation ENDA passed as feeling bittersweet for us trans folk when we were dropped like a hot rock.