Hey, folks. I’m unusually heavily scheduled at my job this week, plus I’m working on a new Hereville page, so my posting will probably be sparse this week.
Also, I’ve got about 50 gmail invites, so if anyone reading “Alas” wants a gmail account just drop me an email.
When capitalized, "Sie" is the formal way to address adults of either gender in polite German. I majored in the…
If one assumes that a person is making their money, including enough money to have no incentive to "work", by…
Ob sie wirklich Deutsch spricht. Normalweise, kommt die US Soldaten nicht ins Stadt und spricht nicht so oft mit denn…
As for being a Nazi, ich spreche fliessend deutsch und wohnte in Deutschland fuer drei Jahre mit der americanishe Luftwaffe…
And of course this "incentive" only applies to poor people: Rich people who already have enough to live off of…
I must have been away for awhile. Why shouldn’t you bring your own beer? I hear that’s very polite.
Keep drawing.
Mmm beer.
What the fuckn hell? Banning two WOMEN – *those* women – and then closing that other thread. Total BS.
Not sparse enough.
i’m with Sheena… closing that other thread was total BS, especially after only two days. not all of us are sitting at a computer every day, ya know.
& more, after banning two women who were raising real questions. & even more, banning them for not arguing civilly after beginning the whole post with: First of all, whatever “civility rules”? normally apply on “Alas”? are not in effect for this thread, since some of the people who have requested this discussion space may find the civility rules constraining?
sigh…
Alsis, wherever you are: rock on.
Alsis wasn’t banned. Paige and Funnie were banned.
I don’t know what post in particular got Paige banned, but Funnie got banned for posting in a thread that was NOT the no civility rules thread something thuroughly vulgar.
she showed nothing but contempt for Amp, and was really creepy about it.
if you’re in the vatican, you don’t call the pope “a dork in a penis-hat.”
And Funnie got a lot more leeway for direct, conteptuous insults than I bet I’d be entitled to.
thread closing is kinda weird, but I can see where it’s coming from
yah, i know Alsis wasn’t banned… that was more a gesture of solidarity for the whole earlier discussion where she called Nomen out & got drubbed for it. to tell the truth, i have always found Alsis’ comments to be a breath of fresh air in terms of their insight. and her “incivility” has been similarly refreshing. it gets tiresome watching so many of these discussions become encounter sessions with bigoted sexists, with their questions & priorities leading the conversations. it’s nice when she comes by & calls a bigot a bigot.
and i know Funnie got nasty. but when you tell folks that the “civility rules” are not in effect & then ban someone for not being “civil” it’s more than a little ironic… especially given the overall context. not to mention that said “rules” are nowhere for easy perusal & reference. then it seems to become just a matter of whim & mood. which, y’know, is Amp’s right. as has been pointed out: it is his blog.
Funnie writes that she wants me to let you know that’s not true. And it’s not true.
I banned Funnie because she said that “I couldn’t be less interested in even PRETENDING to dialog with you, you fucking piece of shit remora,” and she meant it. The point isn’t the swearing – I could give a shit about that. The combination of being over-the-top abusive and not being interested in even a pretense of dialog was why I banned her, and banned Paige.
I wouldn’t ban a feminist for just posting in the wrong thread, or something petty like that. I will ban people if I see no hope that they and I will ever interact in a way that’s not full of contempt.
And besides, say what you want, but it’s Amp’s blog. If he decided suddenly that he wants to ban all people who don’t like having sex with polar bears, that’s his prerogative. It may not be fair for people who don’t find polar bears particularly attractive, or who prefer not getting mauled to death, but hey, them’s the breaks.
I don’t see how being a woman gives you instant freedom from criticism, even, and perhaps especially, on a feminist blog. Ampersand does not want his blog discussions to be a place for discussion without posters being afraid of being abused for what they say. And so do I. I post comments on no other site with the frequency that I do here, and it’s because the discussions are so good. I believe it’s Amp’s right to do what he can to ensure they stay that way.
“I don’t see how being a woman gives you instant freedom from criticism, even, and perhaps especially, on a feminist blog. Ampersand does not want his blog discussions to be a place for discussion without posters being afraid of being abused for what they say. And so do I. I post comments on no other site with the frequency that I do here, and it’s because the discussions are so good. I believe it’s Amp’s right to do what he can to ensure they stay that way. ”
Freedom of criticism is not what women here have been asking for. The double standard of civility as well as a use of civility defined by men, against feminist women are the issues feminists have posted extensively about.
I agree that a blog should be a place where people are free to post without being abused. That’s one reason WHY women-only space is so valued, among others, yet the first comment that led to this ENTIRE discussion is how is it not sexist for a man to be banned from a feminist site for being a man? that’s what women responded to initially before being called on “civility” according to men’s definition of the word, in a way that men were not called on their condescension and insulting(saying a feminist woman wasn’t smart) behavior.
What it sounds like you’re saying is that you just wish the feminist women would leave the men so they would feel “safe” discussing. But though I’m not really all that into making people feel threatened or unsafe, this feeling “unsafe” could have made you realize that this is how women feel nearly all the time when posting on their own topics in any space. Your own discomfort can be a great teacher.
Women have expressed concern about how “free” they’ve felt to post on these threads and also the McKinnon thread(which I’ve not read but was discussed on other threads)
“I banned Funnie because she said that “I couldn’t be less interested in even PRETENDING to dialog with you, you fucking piece of shit remora,”? and she meant it. ”
What you fail to mention is that she said this in response to *your* comment:
“My vision is that “Alas”? will be a place where belligerent small-minded assholes pretend to be interested in dialog while yelling questions at me. ”
Perhaps you could explain how what you said assisted in lessening contempt. Or is the lessening assisted by banning the object of your comtempt?
I’ll admit that I didn’t engage in the “feminist and civility” discussion because I had a bad feeling that it may turn ugly real quick and apparently it did, which is truly sad. I know that when it comes to feminism, feminist women, pro-feminist men, and non-feminist men the definition of “civility” could be polar opposites or somewhat a little different. A disagreement on the definition of “civility” between feminist women, pro-feminist men, and non-feminist men could lead to nastiness within a discussion. I think it would be wonderful to try to find a common ground of the definition of civility in order to productively engage in a discussion about feminism and civility.
I think it is possible for feminist women, pro-feminist men, and non-feminist men to engage in a discussion about feminism in a civil manner, so long as there is some common ground on the definition of civility and mutual respect. Or am I being too damn idealistic and optimistic and it isn’t possible? Curse my youthful idealism.
Look, I’m as stick-carrying, ass-cracking a feminist as you’ll generally find. And I don’t see Amp giving special treatment to men. Dial it down a little. Many of us enjoy having discussions in this space and are getting irritated at the attacks. Not that there aren’t legit points and criticisms, but dial it down a little. It’s one thing to discuss male privilege, another entirely to make unfounded accusations that Amp is favoring male posters.
Yes. What Pseudo-Adrienne and Amanda said.
“so long as there is some common ground on the definition of civility and mutual respect”
I don’t think there is – and that’s a problem. And civility and respect are two different things, and that’s where a lot of the conflict started. Also, I don’t quite see why women should give non-feminist men “respect” – can you maybe clarify what you meant by that?
No, radfem, no one said that. But what I saw from the likes of funnie was when a man criticizes her, she just gives some bullshit comment about not wanting to massage his ego. When a woman criticizes her, it’s ignored. And frankly, I’m sick of it. That’s no better than Bill O’Reilly calling every single criticism of him a personal attack. It’s a cowardly shield against any criticism and it’s bullshit.
I really don’t see the point of immediately assuming all your allies are traitors. If someone’s unwilling to engage in a debate, if all they want to contribute of their own is bile, fine, I’m not going to try to convince them otherwise. But I’d appreciate it if I could avoid the bile.
“Also, I don’t quite see why women should give non-feminist men “respect”? – can you maybe clarify what you meant by that?”
You’re right and I wasn’t being clear, my apologies. Perhaps it was ignorant of me to think that feminist women should be respectful to anti-feminist men, especially if they’re belligerently anti-feminist and even misogynist. Because you’re right about that; why should a feminist woman give a belligerently anti-feminist man or even an anti-feminist woman any respect, when they’re anti-women’s rights and anti-gender equality? I certainly don’t respect those people. That would be somewhat masochistic.
But as for non-feminist men who aren’t anti-feminist because they’re maybe pro-gender equality, but don’t call themselves pro-feminist, I believe they deserve some respect so long as they explain why they don’t call themsevles pro-feminist-men but they’re still for gender equality, in a non-offensive manner. Maybe they just don’t feel like calling themselves a pro-feminist man, but they are for gender equality.
It’s the amount of respect you give to someone, I was talking about. Personally, I usually don’t give anti-feminist men and anti-feminist women any respect.
If a guy or even a gal just blurds out “I hate feminism because it’s driven by a bunch of harry man-hating lesbo nazi b*tches”, then that person doesn’t deserve jack-shit in the ways of respect because how they went about describing their anti-feminist premise.
For me, personally, it depends on how a non-feminist man goes about describing why he doesn’t call himself a pro-feminist man and yet he’s for gender equality.
And yet there are sadly some non-feminist men who are very close to being all out anti-feminist, and those particular men deserve little if any respect.
I’m sorry if my first post was confusing. I failed to elaborate on my views.
And as for male privileges, Amanda. It’s getting really infuriating that some guys believe that by virtue of their sex-chromosomes they automatically deserve special treatment when it comes to sociopolitical discussions such as feminism.
Damn it, why does feminism have to be so f**k!ng hard to talk about?!!!
why should a feminist woman give a belligerently anti-feminist man or even an anti-feminist woman any respect, when they’re anti-women’s rights and anti-gender equality?
Why should a capitalist man give a socialist woman any respect? Why should a pagan woman give a Christian any respect? Etc., etc., ad infinitum.
It is my belief that every human being has value, worth, and dignity. Disagreements – even very profound disagreements – do not affect that truth. Because of that intrinsic worth, I believe that every human being deserves an irreducible minimum of respect. Even people who do not respect me deserve to be treated with respect by me.
Note that “respect” doesn’t mean “never fighting with” or even “never insulting”. It just means accepting the humanity of the other person. Even if the other person is an outright nutjob who’s trying to kill me, I owe them a recognition of their humanity, even if I have to kill them in self-defense. Even if they belong to some horrible ideology that wants to destroy me. I can fight, but if I dehumanize, then it’s my soul that’s damaged, not theirs.
Do I always live up to that? No. Wish I did. It’s on my “issues list”.
radfem (and anyone else),
I disagree entirely with Raznor’s attempted description of what has happened here recently, but I also saw something differently from what you saw in the open thread (we were positioned very differently within the discussion, as I am Amp’s partner of many years and housemate, but wasn’t following the thread very closely until somewhere in the middle, while you were actively participating in the thread from early on). I started trying to summarize the open thread flame war, and what I saw happen and how it differed from what you saw, but it has gradually grown into a ridiculously long blow by blow. I give the summary below, but if anyone is interested, I also give my ridiculously long summary of certain aspects of the dynamics over the first 360 + posts (then I realized I was insane to be writting a summary of it and decided to just post it anyway).
My summary of the dynamics as I see them now, having just reread much of the thread just now (though far from all, so it is certainly possible I missed some critical feature of even the part I’m focusing on here, which is the use of power by Amp as moderator) –
The dynamics, as everyone seems to agree, were skewed by a lot of old history, and underlying bad blood. Overlying that, there was a lot of excellent and at some times heated discussion. Early on, at a critical juncture (Alsis abused Novalis in response to his getting his back up, Robert jumped on her and was both extremely rude and misogynist), Amp misread/skimmed/missed the key post by Robert, and defended Novalis against Alsis’s abuse, and failed to censure Robert for his rudeness. The argument quickly moved from Robert to Novalis, and Amp insulted Molly while defending Novalis. Q Grrl called him on it, and Amp shut up. Eventually Amp re-entered the discussion, disagreeing with Robert’s arguments, and censuring him for being rude to littleviolet. Amp also argued about what the purpose of the board was to littleviolet, arguing that the purpose of the board included not officially censuring people simply for holding offensive views.
There was lots else that happened, including extensive further condescension from Robert, mixed with occaisional abuse. He was called on it by a variety of people (including me and Amp, but mostly Molly, Q Grrl, radfem, littleviolet and many others). I don’t think that anyone ever defended his abusiveness or his condescension (except for Amp’s blunder), but I may be wrong.
After Amp posted defending Novalis, censuring Alsis, and not commenting on Robert’s rude abuse, the tone of discussion grew distinctly flame-y, although much very good discussion occurred as well. The flame-y-ness seemed to be influenced by Amp’s egregious unfairness (which no one could reasonably have guessed was accidental) in enforcing his policies against abusiveness.
That is the summary. Anyone foolish enough to want to read the rest (with post numbers) is more than welcome to. In order to spare everyone a very long comment, I have posted my longer summary in my livejournal.
Perhaps your right. I generally have a rule that if there are 100 comments on a thread before I look at it, I just ignore the thread. And for a post with 400+ comments at this point, I really have no desire to read through all of it, less so after Charles’ description. My impression of funnie was based on the civility thread and the about the first half of the “blame men?” post, and was becoming increasingly angered by the unfair treatment of Amp. Then I read the other half of the “blame men?” post and realized that my description was likely inaccurate. So yeah, I think Charles is more reliable a judge on that than me.
Raznor,
Also, I was responding to your first post here, not your second one (it took me a while to write all that), so it sounded much more like a general description of the situation, and not a specific description of the dishonest games that funnie was using.
I still don’t think it was a correct description of the techniques funnie was using, but at least it doesn’t seem completely ridiculous and off the wall.
I think one thing that has been happening here (on Alas over the past few days) that has been extremely destructive to functional discussion has been an occasional tendency towards over-broad generalizations. While it includes some of the comments about what men here do, it also included comments like Raznor’s above, and also the explosive final exchange between Jake Squid and Q Grrl on the civility thread, in which Jake seemed to me to be lumping Q Grrl’s intermittent expressions of frustration with men refusing to get it (intermittent because Q Grrl was also writing a huge quantity of posts that were extremely cogent and powerful, in which she was extremely careful to explain that while it might read like an attack, it should not be taken as an attack) in with funnie and Paige’s pointless abuse of FoolishOwl.
I think that…
Oh hell, I don’t know what I think. This has been hugely frustrating and somewhat stressful, but very interesting and instructive. A lot of very good stuff has been written here in the past few days, and a lot of ugly shit has gone on. I’m still trying to work out for myself how those two things interrelated.
I think Charles has summed up the actual events pretty well, so I don’t want to rehash them in detail.
My current concern is the general way that many of the men (and please, before responding note that I’m not saying “all”) have apparently failed to see that their reactions to this whole debacle are running on strictly sexist lines.
The message that a lot of the posts I’ve read in these threads has read to me something like, “Why can’t you women just stop being so emotional, look at things rationally, and simply accept that we are pro-feminist men?” Which already throws up three red flags to any feminist, as well as seeming to imply that once a guy says he’s pro-feminist, he should be above having his motivations questioned.
Well, it just doesn’t work that way. Hell, if feminists are constantly in the process of questioning ourselves and each other, we’re hardly likely to make an exception for men. And adding appeals to “reason” (whose reason??) and admonitions of “over-emotional” or “distastefully” angry posting styles is textbook Sexist Paternal Male talk.
And I’m sorry, but whinging about how mean the Big Bad Feminists are and how Unfair it is ‘cos you’re just so Nice to us is infuriating in a way I wonder that any white man can truly understand. It’s something that goes so deep I don’t even know if I can explain it, but it has to do with the fact that that sort of treatment is how the rest of us live every day. Most of us to the point where we stop even brooding over it because that would just short-circuit our ability to move on and be productive. Every time I read a post by some guy sounding wounded and forlorn because he was [horrors!!] *criticised* in an [oh, the indignity!!!] *angry*, nay, even *abusive* [NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!] manner, and that means that he just has it so fucking tough in this world………….well, I just want to vomit. Literally. Or maybe smash everything in my immediate vicinity out of frustration. Welcome to how I live my fucking life, guys. And thank goodness I’m tougher than a lot of the hothouse flowers posting here, or I would’ve curled up in a ball of self-pitying misery and expired long ago.
*That* is what is really bugging a lot of us even now, after Amp’s admission that was unfair to Alsis. It’s the fact that guys who are supposed to be clued-in about their own privilege and how that affects their behaviour towards women are, when confronted by feminist women about it, are clapping their hands over their ears and singing, “LA LA LA, I can’t heeeeeaaaar you……….and anyway, why are you being so mean to me when I’m one of the Nice Guys?!?” And therefore diverting any discussion of men’s behaviour to one of feminists’ behaviour.
Feminism for pro-feminist men isn’t simply about criticising what the Bad Guys do, it also has to involve a lot of painful soul-searching and examination of ones own behaviour. Like I said, we do it to ourselves, and if you say you’re on our side, we’d appreciate it if you were more open to doing the same.
Damn, even after proofreading, I post tons of typos….must spend fewer hours in front of the screen. Amongst the many, one did actually affect the message:
“after Amp’s admission that was unfair to Alsis” should be, “after Amp’s admission that HE HAD BEEN unfair to Alsis” Credit where credit is due.
Crys T,
[this note is written after I wrote the rest of this, and is a comment on my own comment that follows, not on what you said: Damn, you just objected to the way that men here keeping turning this from a discussion of the behavior of men in this recent exchange into a discussion of the behavior of women in this exchange, and here I find myself doing it anyway. I think some of what I say in what follows is worth saying, and it is nearing 5 am, so I am not going to complete re-write this. I do talk about the behavior of men in this as well, and my summary was mostly about the behavior of men (well the behavior of one particular man), so I hope you will forgive me for the focus of this comment. If this does seem like cheap redirection of the discussion to you, please feel free (like you need my permission…) to call me on it. Also, I basically agree with your last post]
What you describe was definitely there, although I think the problem was at points exacerbated by the presence of funnie and Paige, who were simply pointlessly abusive (or rather, they were intentionally abusive, and abusive in order to make a point, but not even particularly to the person they were abusing). I think it should be acceptable for anyone to object to people being pointlessly abusive toward them, but I think there was some dangerously sloppy (and self serving) conflation of the pointless abuse from Paige and funnie and the serious criticism from you and Q Grrl (among many others). That both of you at times vented your frustration with the unwillingness of various people (mostly men, but a couple of women also came in for some fairly brutal venting) to get what you were trying to explain really never seemed to me to fall into at all the same category as what Paige and funnie were doing. I think that having people participating who were being pointlessly abusive (and who were never called on it by any of the people who they were in apparent agreement with) probably made it much easier for some of the men involved to make self-serving generalizations that lumped the pointless abuse in with the criticism (much of which was angry, and some of which was abusive, but all of which was well argued, serious and intended to make a difference), and allowed them to listen much less to the criticism. To be clear, I hold those who refused to listen as much at fault as I do funnie or Paige, but I still think that what funnie and Paige were doing was destructive to understanding and communication.
When objections to abusiveness are used to hide from criticism, I think that that is a serious problem, and one I can entirely understand is hugely frustrating when you are trying to deliver the criticism (particularly when you are clearly putting a lot of work into trying to deliver the criticism in a manner that will be understood). On the other hand, I think that abusiveness for its own sake is something that anyone should be allowed to object to. The abuse that you live with in your life is something I expect you object to as much as you are able (and the abusiveness of Robert was something that was actively objected to by many here). The abuse that you are unable to object to is a further wrong for the fact that you are unable to object to it. Of course, abuse within the context of larger power dynamics is different depending on what those power dynamics are (which I think is part of what Heart was trying to explain in the “All men have abused women” discussion that so many men (and I think several women) were having such a hard time getting at), but not entirely different.
I don’t think that simply because we as men are subjected to much less abuse (although I know that several men here have been, at various times in their lives, subjected to fairly severe abuse), that we are therefore should not be allowed to object to abuse. I think that abuse is not a particularly good tactic, and that it should not be condoned as a tactic (although I think that abuse that arises out of anger and frustration is sometimes understandable and forgivable, and that the presence of abuse doesn’t free the subject of the abuse from looking at why it happened).
When I hear people praising the use of abusiveness (which I don’t think you have done anywhere in this discussion, but which I felt funnie did in the exchange with FoolishOwl), I am very much reminded of the famous Audre Lorde quote, which I always misquote as the master’s tools will never build anything except the master’s house (it has always seemed to me that the master’s tools are just fine for dismantling the master’s house and building a brand new master’s house in its place).
radfem commented earlier in this thread:
But though I’m not really all that into making people feel threatened or unsafe, this feeling “unsafe”? could have made you realize that this is how women feel nearly all the time when posting on their own topics in any space. Your own discomfort can be a great teacher.
I certainly hope that many of the participants in these discussions will use the discomfort of these discussions productively as radfem suggests, and I certainly am trying to, but I think the discomfort that arises out of our response to the powerful challenges and criticisms that radfem, Crys T, Q Grrl and many others made are far more likely to be better teachers than the abuse from funnie or Paige. There is sometimes something that can be learned from being attacked, but some of the time it just leaves bruises, and a lot of the time it is a lousy teacher. I think that I, who was never directly attacked or subjected to intentional abuse, am probably in a much better position to learn from what was said here than is (for instance) FoolishOwl, who is much more likely to be left saying “What the fuck was that?!” and with a bitter burning taste in his mouth that distracts from actually listening to what was said.
I just want to point at that y’all were talking about how Wendy McElroy was driven off her own board by misogynists. Someone even said that could never happen to a man. What do you think is happening right now?
This is Amp’s blog and we are in his “home” so to speak. He gets to establish the rules. We are free to create our own blogs if we so choose.
And just like McElroy is *sometimes* on the MRA side, so too is Amp on our side. Let’s not drive him out of the feminist blogosphere. Feminists aren’t always going to agree, and some feminists (like me, Foolish Owl, and others) aren’t always going to “get it”. But please give us a chance to understand before you kick us to the curb.
“please give us a chance to understand before you kick us to the curb.”
Well, I don’t feel I’m “kicking anyone to the curb”. In fact, I don’t feel that I in any way have the power to do so, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.
Also, it’s hard to feel that people are even trying to understand when they are derailing the argument to other issues. When you are on the side that feels hard done by, that looks an awful lot like a refusal to listen or try to understand.
Finally, Amp is in no way being “driven off” his own blog. He may feel pressured and uncomfortable, but he has the right to ban or refuse to deal with whomever he likes. He also has people backing him up, so it’s not like he’s standing alone in the face of overwhelming hostility. In fact, apart from a couple of people who came here looking for trouble (again, not that they didn’t raise some valid points), the feminists who have criticised Amp have, I feel, shown a willingness to dialogue and explain. Just because we aren’t about to back down on positions we feel are crucial, that doesn’t mean we aren’t still talking.
My aim in arguing here is not to make anyone feel bad, much less to drive anyone away, but I’m damned if I’m going to capitulate on questions that I feel are vital to answer just because someone wags their finger at me and scolds me for my “meanness”.
I keep seeing an effort to establish a divide between the good girls – Q grrl, Crys T, and radfem – and the bad girls – Paige and Funnie – even though both the good girls and the bad girls have been making the same points. I wonder if it’s working? It’s too bad Paige and Funnie were banned; we might have gotten to see a naked catfight.
Actually, I found the end of the exchange on civility to have the most useful information in it. Especially posts 101 (QGrrl), 102 (Paige), and 118 (CrysT). Those three posts brought a lot of the earlier posts into much clearer view for me as well as revealing a lot about motivation, perception and message. Believe it or not, it took me a long time and a lot of work to figure out how to phrase my comments in order to get a response that I could understand. I have no hard feelings towards any of the commenters, nor was I feeling wounded. I was merely trying to understand what was being written and that is what I thought my comments reflected. As a result of the whole exchange I have given a lot of thought to who I am and how I act. I’ve also spent time finding & reading about the philosophy/POV that many of the commenters seem to have – something that I don’t think that I could have done without the various exchanges.
There are still things about which I’m confused, not surprisingly. Not the least of which is which of the conflicting statements seems like the best path to follow – or if they are, in fact, conflicting statements (stop making it all about you/stop trying to redirect the conversation to the behaviour of women – is an example).
I would like to figure out how to say some of the things that I tried to say and have them interpereted in the way that I intended. I thought that I was being very careful and specifically saying that these were how I was understanding the comments that I was reading and leaving a clear opening for people to correct things that I misinterpereted. I obviously have a long way to go in that area.
I think Redneck feminist’s point was, if we accept the conclusion that McElroy was driven off her board, then we can logically suggest that the current debate could be driving me off my blog. After all, everything you write to establish that I am not being driven off “Alas” is equally true of McElroy; she also had the right to ban or ignore posters, and she also had people backing her up. It was not a literal ban from participation that “drove her off,” but that the environment created by the posters was making her feel “pressured and uncomfortable.”
Although it didn’t seem important enough to comment on at the time, I thought Heart was mistaken to describe McElroy as driven off her own site, for the reasons you mention in regard to me. A more accurate statement would be that, in order to have the sort of discussion she wanted, McElroy had to change her model for hosting an online discussion board (from a publicly accessible model to an invitation only model).
I don’t know if the software platform you use would readily support such a thing, but this might be an interesting experiment:
Divide Alas’ commentary into three different models. In one model, you keep things as they are. In another model, it’s a free-for-all – no civility rule. In a third model, you have a feminist-only space. Let the creator of each thread decide which comment model will be used. Maybe the background color of the comment section could change depending on which model was in play, or some other visual cue could provide a reinforcement of what the rules of engagement were.
It would be interesting to see which comment model produced the best outcomes, from a variety of different points of view.
Redneck feminist:
That’s true, of course – and I thank you for your kindness towards me. However, part of the rules I’ve established is that it is acceptable for posters to criticize me, as long as the criticism doesn’t make me feel that I’m consistantly being abused or treated with contempt.
There’s the rub – “as long as I feel.” It’s subjective, and of course it’s always possible I’ll make errors. Flea (if I understand her point correctly) believes that there was no substantive difference between the posts made by the two posters I banned and those made by several critics who were not banned; therefore she argues, correctly if you accept her premise, that what’s going on here is a sexist division of posters into “good girls” and “bad girls.”
I disagree, because I think it’s obvious that the banned posters were doing something significantly different than the non-banned posters. However, this is an entirely subjective question; I can’t prove that Flea is wrong, and logically I can’t ignore the possibility that Flea is correct.
On the other hand, unless I either give up on having moderation or give up on having comments, then the subjectivity problem will always be with us. I do try to take criticisms seriously and to questiion my judgement, but in the end using my own judgements is unavoidable.
Robert, you wrote
Many people here have observed you not treating people with respect. Taking you at your word that you want to live up to your ideal, how can I help you do it?
“No, radfem, no one said that. But what I saw from the likes of funnie was when a man criticizes her, she just gives some bullshit comment about not wanting to massage his ego. When a woman criticizes her, it’s ignored. And frankly, I’m sick of it. That’s no better than Bill O’Reilly calling every single criticism of him a personal attack. It’s a cowardly shield against any criticism and it’s bullshit.
I really don’t see the point of immediately assuming all your allies are traitors. If someone’s unwilling to engage in a debate, if all they want to contribute of their own is bile, fine, I’m not going to try to convince them otherwise. But I’d appreciate it if I could avoid the bile. ”
Oh great, Men’s News Forum, Bill O’Reilly, lol.
I’m frankly sick of sexism and sexist attitudes, whether they be from the big, bad sexists, or the benign “allied” sexists. Dealing with both, like most women, I can say that.
Who are my allies here? The men? I barely know any of the men and after seeing how they pack up and defend each other’s rights to define civil behavior and castigate feminists by comparing them to MALE baddies, I don’t FEEL like you or them ARE my allies, and it’s MY choice to pick alliances, just like it’s YOUR choice to do so, only it’s the WOMEN who are told who their allies are here, like in feminism.
Speaking for myself, yes, I was feeling pretty much “WTF?!” I was feeling angry, confused, and frustrated. And that made it difficult for me to address things reasonably, or give everyone’s arguments their due consideration. When several people are yelling at you, and at least some of what’s being yelled at you is unfair, it’s all too easy to lump everything together in a sort of red haze.
This is why I think it’s important to try to be civil and reasonable with people you respect. It’s not because I think women are irrational. It’s because I know people can be, when they’re upset. I’ve had to tell men to calm down lots of times; I’ve been told the same by others. And I get to see my own irrationality closer up than anyone else, so I’m quite sure I can be pretty damned unreasonable if I’m not careful about it.
I started reading the civility thread as it was being closed, but I doubt I had much to contribute. I agree that there was interesting information in that thread, but mostly it reminds me that long comment threads, particularly entered into late, aren’t appealing to me.
Thank you, Charles, for summarizing the previous comment thread that led to the discussion of civility rules; it’s useful context.
A few times in that thread, Amp mentioned that he thought other blogs & boards would fill the hole if his site ceased to exist. I suspect that you (Amp) are right… for people who are deliberately seeking feminist boards. I didn’t come here for the feminism, (I came from your Znet cartoons), but I have strongly appreciated your yeoman’s work in developing & presenting strong arguments that have encouraged me to stick around, examine my life, and investigate further. Certainly, your favorable reviews and links to other sites have expanded my horizons further; Mousewords & Echidene are now daily reads, and I enjoy Trish Wilson, Brutal Women, and many other sites whenever you link. [And usually for more than the linked post.]
Taking you at your word that you want to live up to your ideal, how can I help you do it?
Well, I am mainly susceptible to ideal-failure when I am feeling invalidated. How to avoid me feeling that way?
Read the things I write under the assumption that I am a basically decent human being who you may have fundamental disagreements with, instead of under the assumption that I am a monstrous person filled with evil. If there is a question about my motives (is he asking for clarification because he is genuinely confused, because he secretly knows what the answer is but refuses to acknowledge it because that would involve work, or because he wants to provoke and torment feminists?), seek clarification of the motive rather than starting from the conclusion that it’s the worst possible case. Recognize that people of good will can have radically different approaches to problems, and that my disagreement with your methods does not automatically constitute a disagreement with your ends.
If you perceive me as failing to do one of these things, civilly call me on it. If you decide that I am filled with evil, and have dark and sinister motives, and that I am not a person of good will, then tell me so in order that I can try to avoid provoking you.
That’s it off the top of my head.
If anyone is interested, I have reopened (somewhat) the discussion on civility over on my own blog.
Wait, you opened your own blog? When? Why wasn’t I told? I’m bookmarking it immediately!
radfem: Fine, have your choice. But have you thought that those of us who know amp, and have been regular readers here, are attempting to defend him on the basis of loyalty to a friend instead of some sort of male bonding?
Okay, I didn’t directly retract my last statement, but Charles has offered a very reasonable counter-explanation to my response that I have been willing to accept as likely being more accurate than my own.
Frankly, I have no desire to have a shoutfest with you, radfem, because I really like what you have to say for the most part. Half of what you say I agree a quarter I could be convinced of and the rest I can respect. I don’t really care if you like what I have to say or not, fine. What I don’t like is what seems to be hateful and unfair treatment of those I count among my friends, online or otherwise.
flea:
I keep seeing an effort to establish a divide between the good girls – Q grrl, Crys T, and radfem – and the bad girls – Paige and Funnie – even though both the good girls and the bad girls have been making the same points. I wonder if it’s working? It’s too bad Paige and Funnie were banned; we might have gotten to see a naked catfight.
I don’t think that my attacking funnie and Paige while praising pretty much every other radical feminist participating in these discussions is intended to create divisions. However, given that a) it is being read that way by you (and possibly by others), b) I think both radfem and Crys T have chosen not to defend funnie and Paige’s intent here (either because they don’t see those methods as worth defending, or because they are choosing not to rise to the bait), I am probably going to shut up about them. I have only continued talking about them this far because a) I’m really interested in the dynamics of situations like this, and they were a significant part of those dynamics, b) I really think that there was a difference in intent between what they were doing here and what pretty much everyone else actively participating was doing, and I think that that difference is very much related to what I think went wrong, and also to what I think is the valid and salvagable portion portion of Amp’s civility concept. They were certainly not the only people who led to what went wrong, and I have talked about both Robert and Amp’s actions that led to the situation as well.
I have been naming names because I think it is much easier for me (and I therefore assume everyone else) to understand what is being described if it is specified exactly which incidents in all of this (600 + comments) are being refered to. I think Raznor’s comments earlier in this thread would have been more comprehensible if he had made it clear exactly which posters in which comments he was refering to. Likewise, drumgurl’s recent comment was ambiguous about whether she meant that the current discussion on this thread was like kicking someone to the curb, or if she meant that some of the 600+ comments had felt that way (or even that some of the 600+ comments had felt like they were verging in that directions). All of those possibilities mean very different things, and all of them should reasonably be met with different responses.
I also called Robert and FoolishOwl by name, and I refered to Jake Squid’s post clearly enough that he clearly knew he was being refered to.
Of course, actually that is another problem with my talking specifically about funnie and Paige, which is that unlike anyone else I have talked about, they are not here to give their version of events, or to talk about what they were trying to do. I objected to mn responding directly to a post Paige had made after she had already been banned, and I don’t think what I’m doing her is really that much more fair.
I’d really like to continue talking about the specific dynamics of this situation (because I love that sort of thing), but I think I should stop talking about funnie and Paige. I think that I will step away from talking about the dynamics of exactly what happened here, and move on to how these relate to broader dynamics (which I think is what both radfem and Crys T have been trying to get this towards). But not right now… Off to work.
My, what a lot goes on when one has to leave the boards for a few days!
All to discuss usenet .alt rule # 2 (after Godwin’s rule): Don’t feed the trolls!
I’d rather look at hereville, a better use of amp’s time.
Raznor, this isn’t a shoutfest and if I’m hateful and unfair to Ampersand, that’s not my intention and I think he understands that as well. I do however fully intend to speak the truth as I see it, as honestly as I see it. I’m pretty blunt, and if that’s seen as “hateful” or “unfair” then I’d like to see some of the men’s similarly blunt behavior to women here, viewed in the same light. The men have given as good as they’ve gotten, and with the partial exception of Charles (who though I have issues with him, so far they haven’t said certain women are not “bright” or direct insults to or if he did, I missed them)
No, I haven’t defended funnie’s “intent” and I won’t. But I don’t miss the irony of complaints by male posters of double standards of moderation with men getting the short end of the stick, allegedly, then the banning of the two women right after. It’s hard not to. I did point out that personal adversarial history between her and Ampersand flowed in both directions. Someone here pointed out that “personal history” is what bonded the men together, not sexism. However, some of the women especially bean and alsis share that same personal history or even deeper history with Ampersand and they both took him to task, boldly so. So why does personal history of Ampersand and several of the men bring them all on the same side, but similar personal history between Ampersand and two women still puts them strongly on opposite sides?
In addition, One woman of which he responded to by a reminder to be civil. I think by his discourse and hope that he realized that he wasn’t fair to that woman.
I don’t want to dwelve too much into personal history but you raised that issue as a counter explanation to something I had raised earlier.
paige, I’m not putting in that category, because it was more some series of posts that allegedly banned her, but not one cited specific post. I thought she made some excellent points, so her banning surprised me more than funnie’s did.
Yeah, I was wondering why Paige was banned too because her posts weren’t nearly at the same level as funnie’s.
Robert said: If you perceive me as failing to do one of these things, civilly call me on it. If you decide that I am filled with evil, and have dark and sinister motives, and that I am not a person of good will, then tell me so in order that I can try to avoid provoking you.
being filled with evil, having dark & sinister motives, & not being a person of good will are all different things. you may not fall into the first category, but easily qualify for the latter two….
easily, i say.
In all the tut-tutting over funnie’s overwhelming awfulness, people seem to have missed what she was responding to with the comment which apparently raised the “level” of awfulness, so I’ll repeat an earlier post of mine which raised the issue:
———————————————————–
“I banned Funnie because she said that “I couldn’t be less interested in even PRETENDING to dialog with you, you fucking piece of shit remora,”? and she meant it. “?
What you fail to mention is that she said this in response to *your* comment:
“My vision is that “Alas”? will be a place where belligerent small-minded assholes pretend to be interested in dialog while yelling questions at me. “?
Perhaps you could explain how what you said assisted in lessening contempt. Or is the lessening assisted by banning the object of your contempt?
———————————————————————
Now yes, I know it’s Ampersand’s blog, his rules, etc etc, but still – can someone explain how that comment of his was *not* offensive on its own, you know, “level”?
Sheena –
I think you misunderstood my comment. My fault – I didn’t explain myself clearly.
My point wasn’t that Funnie said was banned for that particular post. I banned Funnie because of my perception that (as I said in the post you quote) “she meant it.”
The reason for the banning was not Funnie calling me a piece of shit, which was totally understandable given what I had just said to her! I banned her because I believed that she had no intention of participating in dialog but instead was only gathering ammo, and because I thought she was being abusive – not in that one particular post, but in many posts before that particular exchange.
As it happens, Funnie explicitly confirmed that she wasn’t interested in dialog. However, even if she hadn’t said that, I probably still would have banned her. As I said in the post she was responding to, I was by that point convinced that she had no sincere interest in dialog.
radfem:
Again, I apologize for not explaining myself clearly. It was the whole series of Funnie’s posts that got her banned; if I had not been convinced by that point that “she meant it” when she said she wasn’ t interested in dialog, then that single post would not have been enough to get her banned.
Samantha, you asked about Paige. As I wrote on another thread, “She was banned because she gave me the very strong impression that she was a prosecutor looking for evidence to support her already-determined conclusion. It was an impression gathered from many posts, not from any single one.”
Sheena,
I think it is important to realize that the part that was cause for her banning was “I couldn’t be less interested in even PRETENDING to dialog with you”, not the rest of it. And the important part was not simply that she said it (there are plenty of people who could have said it in a fit of disgust who would not be banned, because their actions in general have not shown it to be the case, although they would certainly be pushing towards being banned if they didn’t back off of it pretty quickly), but that she meant it and had shown by her actions that she meant it. She went into more detail about just what she meant before she was banned, and the greater detail, with less abuse, did not run counter to what she stated more simply in the oft quoted line above.
This is in large part what DonP was banned for as well.
I don’t really understand as clearly why Paige was banned as well. I think it was mostly that she was clearly tag teaming with funnie, and that Amp felt that she was acting under the same “I’m not here to even pretend to dialog” flag as funnie, but I don’t really know.
I don’t think that DonP ever explicitly said that he wasn’t here to dialog (nor do any of the generic drive-by trolls Amp bans), so self-admission of that state has never been a requirement for banning.
Okay, I said I would stop talking about funnie and Paige, but that was before the question of their banning was specifically and directly raised by multiple people. However, I think I’m going to shut up on the banning question as well, unless anyone engages me specifically on it.
And I’ll definitely shut up, since Amp can speak for himself perfectly well. Sorry (you wouldn’t guess it from the time stamps, but my last post was cross posted with both of Amp’s posts).
Just ducking in before my break is over to give a much-belated thanks to jam for her compliments.
[passes jam a couple of toffee-cake bars.]
Thanks. As you all were. :/
I was not planning at all to comment on the whole debate, but I do want to second, to the maximum, the following statement by Jam:
I was about to say that those who, like Jam and myself, enjoy Alsis 38’s writing can go to a forum where she posts regularly (or did last time I checked). However, since that site isn’t on Alas‘s blogroll, I’m not sure whether it is safe to publicize its URI here.
Interestingly enough, the only men who posted on the threads I read there were the “sex positive” kind [as in, “consensual sex for no money is lame and uncool, norp and porstitution (misspelling intentional) are totally awesome and you’re a fascist if you oppose them, whatever the reasons”]. They were clearly trolling and unsensitive to other posters’ feelings and were rightly banned for that after wasting every chance to say anything else than “feminists should be more concerned about our ‘right’ to consume the product of sex ‘work’ than to allow women to have a safe life without being exploited.
Anyway, I still wish that Alsis will have the opportunity to create her own blog someday, adding visual pleasure (I dream of an original collage layout) to the acuteness of the observations.
mmm…. toffee-cake bars.
oh, and, er, um… that should be “his compliments”… cough cough
:)
(For the record, comment #52 by Alsis hadn’t appeared yet when I posted mine, which is now #53.)
I’ll say I’ve always enjoyed alsis’s posts here. I have always enjoyed alsis’ posts here, in particular when she’s gets in-your-face about it. I’m always left with a smile. Oh, and the occasional dropping in to give people e-toffee is great as well.
radfem: I should say that I wrote the first comments regarding funnie (and I meant my words to specifically pertain to funnie, but I guess also indirectly to funnie’s defenders, which is unfair, sorry) I hadn’t yet read your post explaining that there was some history to this. Then I did. Then I thought, “Oops, was a bit quick to judge there.” I still think that funnie was inappropriate, and I also still think that it is justified to defend Amp against funnie’s attacks. I have not intended to simply defend him against all attacks, and in many regards, most of the radical feminists here, funnie included, have made some good points, and I do not wish to imply that those points are invalid. If it seems I’m ignoring them it’s because I’m still mulling them and really don’t have much to say on the subject.
Charles is right that I should have been more clear about what I said earlier. My bad. And I do really appreciate most of what you (radfem) and Q Grrl and CrysT and others have been adding here.
One more thing, you and others have implied that the men hear have not been detecting when misogyny is disguised as civility. I have not said anything to this because, frankly, to my shame, it’s exactly right. I’m racking my brain as to how I can become better with that, hopefully I’ll find a way.
Amp: Samantha, you asked about Paige. As I wrote on another thread, “She was banned because she gave me the very strong impression that she was a prosecutor looking for evidence to support her already-determined conclusion. It was an impression gathered from many posts, not from any single one.”?
Why would this be a ban-able offense? Why not just say what you said right there and say for this reason, you won’t be responding? Or will be responding selectively or whatever. Especially given the hot topics du jour over the past few days and that one of them was whether or not these boards are friendly to radical feminists. (!)
Heart
Wow, I just had an epiphany. And that whole “allies/spies” remark I said earlier. Fuck, how the hell can I be so fucking shortsighted. That reminds me of all the crap I hate, like during the same sex marriage debates, where people were saying “oh yeah, it’s nice, but not during an election year” ignoring the fact that every other year is a fucking election year and are we supposed to just ignore civil rights issues when it’s not an odd numbered year, you fucker.
Damn, I deserved a much bigger verbal asskicking than radfem saw fit to bestow on me.
Pingback: Stone Court
Jam wrote:
oh, and, er, um… that should be “his compliments”… cough cough
Oh, crap. This would NEVER have happened if I’d only been reading John Gray instead of Ralph Nader. :o
[looks over at Jimmy, remembers that the website hasn’t been updated in almost three years, not to mention that her copy of Photoshop Wow is rapidly gathering dust, and runs screaming from the room.]
“She was banned because she gave me the very strong impression that she was a prosecutor looking for evidence to support her already-determined conclusion. It was an impression gathered from many posts, not from any single one.”?
Amp, how does this differ from Robert’s response to me when I said his questions were rhetorical and that *he* had already made up his mind about which answers he would listen to and which he wouldn’t?
I don’t have the power to ban him — all I have is my words and anger. If I take those too far, it seems *I’m* likely to be the one banned.
Anyway, I still wish that Alsis will have the opportunity to create her own blog someday, adding visual pleasure (I dream of an original collage layout) to the acuteness of the observations.
Yeah, well, I’ve asked her if she plans to blog, and no luck yet. She’s buy working and paying rent and being a kick-ass artist.
Damn you, Alsis. . . damn yooooooooouuuuuu!!!!
[shaking my fist and jumping up and down in a petulant fit]
Q Grrl, I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel as if you’re in danger of being banned. I promise you, barring some huge and radical change in your posting style and views (i.e., assuming you don’t convert to being a men’s rights activist tomorrow), you’re not in any such danger. I love what your comments add to “Alas” discussions, even when I don’t agree with your comments.
(And if I banned people for getting pissed off at Robert, then dozens of regular “Alas” posters would have been banned for that long ago.)
Apart from that, I think I’ve said all I’m going to say about the banning of Paige and Funnie.
The truth is, “Alas” doesn’t feel like a safe space for me to have this discussion right now. So I’m not going to.
By “safe,” by the way, I don’t mean “a space where Amp will never be criticized or made uncomfortable for his male privilege,” although I realize that some will interpret it that way.
I mean a space where, while I may be criticized or made uncomfortable, I won’t be bullied, or mocked for having human feelings; and where my disagreements with my critics, while not always agreed with, will at least be given a serious hearing, rather than dismissed without any serious consideration.
I can’t talk about why civility matters to me without talking about my background; about ways in which I was abused as a child, about the self-hatred I was taught. But I can’t talk about that stuff in a space where it seems likely that any pain I’ve had in my life is going to be mocked and dismissed as irrelevant.
I fully realize that many women have gone through things much more horrible than anything I’ve experienced in my life. I am by no means claiming that what I feel, or what I’ve gone through, is worse than what women often have felt and gone through.
But I don’t think it logically follows that because my painful experiences aren’t the worse, most painful experiences imaginable, they are therefore trivial, and for me to think this stuff is relevant at all is to invite my female readers to vomit.
Now, I realize that I’m not the only person who ever feels unsafe posting on “Alas.” And I’d genuinely like to improve that, although I admit I don’t yet feel that I know how to do so. But at the same time, my situation is not comparable to everyone else’s here, in one important respect. Anyone else who feels unsafe on “Alas” has an option that I don’t have; they can walk away, or take a break.
“Alas” is my online “home.” While I appreciate and value the contributions made by the posters here, I think it’s fair for me to say that none of you have invested nearly the amount of mental and creative energy into “Alas” as I have. That’s not something I can walk away from nearly as easily as anyone else here.
Anyhow, that’s the reason I’m not going to be talking about some stuff here for a while.
Postscript: I should point out that I’m not claiming that anyone is intentionally trying to make me feel that “Alas” is not safe space for me to post. However, as Flea says, even if it is not intentional, it is still happening.
You know Amp, Charles probably *didn’t* intend to pit the women against each other with his good girl/bad girl routine. But don’t you think there was a better way to present his issues than saying, “These are the feminists who will be rewarded by my attention because they do things in ways that are pleasing to me, and *those* are the feminists who will be punished because I find their attitudes to be wrong.”
Whether he is intending it or not, he is still telling women – all women – how to conduct themselves. What concerns me is his complete unwillingness to show any self-reflection and confront his internalized sexism.
This might not disturb me so much if I didn’t see a closing of ranks among the male posters while simultaneously attempting to divide the female posters. EVEN IF YOU DON’T MEAN TO DO IT, it is still happening.
Flea, I’d like to give this serious thought before I respond. It would be helpful to me, in doing this, if you could tell me exactly in which post(s) (the posts are numbered) Charles said what you’re referring to, or quote the particular passage.
Or, if what you’re referring to is a general attitude in all his posts, rather than what was said in specific posts, then let if you could say that, that would be helpful too.
Of course, you’re not obliged to clarify in this way, but it would be helpful.
However, I should say that I didn’t realize that your previous post – #27 – was intended to be a criticism of how Charles presented his issues. I thought you were criticising multiple posters here, and I also took it as a criticism of me – that, by banning those two women and not others, I was dividing the female posters here into “good” and “bad.”
Well, it was originally intended to be a more generalized post so as not to call anyone out specifically, but Charles made it easy back up there in post #24 where he does it twice, once in the second paragraph and once in the last. I also changed from general to specific when you said you’d give some thought to what I said. Since that’s what I’ve been going on about, the tendency of male posters to refuse to engage in self-reflection, I thought it would be unfair to keep including you when you just did exactly that.
“Although it didn’t seem important enough to comment on at the time, I thought Heart was mistaken to describe McElroy as driven off her own site, for the reasons you mention in regard to me.2
For what’s it’s worth, Amp, I think the response a lot of women, feminist or otherwise, have had to the McElroy situation is, “Trolls push me off my own damn blog???!??!!!? That sure as hell wouldn’t happen to ME!”
At this point, there are four blogs attacking me for my deliberate derailment of the “civility” discussion, by introducing an off-topic discussion. I’m wondering when someone will notice that the topic Rad Geek and I were discussing had been introduced by Crys T in the second post in the thread, with an invitation to “get the discussion rolling.”
Yes, I should have dropped the subject after Amp’s post. It was a blunder. But I’m really getting tired of more and more posts labelling me an anti-feminist, or a right-wing misogynist, for deliberately derailing a conversation, when that’s not what I was trying to do.
Frankly, I’m getting insulted over and over, and several people owe me apologies.
Flea,
After your post calling me out on that, I realized that I could definitely be interpreted as doing that (and of course, my intent is much less important than my effect, so it doesn’t really matter if I didn’t mean it that way). In post 39 I tried to respond to your criticism, and I agreed to stop doing it. While I did enter the discussion about Paige once it was actively on the plate again, I did so mostly because I wanted to compare her situation to DonP’s (not that she did anything as egregious as DonP, but that I saw some similarities worth expressing).
Again, my purpose in naming names repeatedly was to make it very clear that what I was describing as a problem did not refer to any of the people I was talking to, that there was, to my mind a difference of category, and not simply a threshold between the ways different people had been activing. I think that this is an important distinction, but I accept that I should have found a better way of talking about it.
In terms of self-reflection, it may not be obvious that I am engaging in it, but I am trying. I have been putting a huge amount of effort and thought into this discussion this week (as, clearly, have many others), and it has definitely provided food for thought for a long time to come. One thing I have been realizing as I’ve been writting this is that your criticism of my behavior as: “These are the feminists who will be rewarded by my attention because they do things in ways that are pleasing to me, and *those* are the feminists who will be punished because I find their attitudes to be wrong.”? (which I acknowledge has more than a grain of truth to it, particularly since how it is read matters at least as much as how it is meant) has lead me to realize that actually I have been doing something at least as bad, which is that I have been allowing myself to spend time on being upset over funnie and Paige’s abuse of FoolishOwl and Amp that would better be spent on thinking about all of the valid arguments brought forward in these discussions.
I think I may come off as trying to float above the fray, never taking any of the generalized criticism to heart, but that is more because I agree with much of it than because I’m sitting here thinking “Oh, well that can’t apply to me.”
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to provide me with direct criticism. I do find it useful, and I do realize that having to sit down with each man you run into who is doing something stupid and harmful and carefully explain what he is doing wrong, why it is wrong, and how it links into a larger system of wrongdoing, such that what may seem trivial to him is actually one small part of a much larger system of wrongs is so much of a pain in the ass that it is often not worth doing, so I do appreciate that you found it worth doing.
And if you were only intending to use me as a teaching object, I still find it useful. :)
FoolishOwl,
I’d been meaning to go and take a look at that thread again, because something was nagging at me that I didn’t think that you had been the one to start the digression. I had thought it was RadGeek, but you’re right, it was CrysT.
It doesn’t matter at this point: you’ve been made into a teaching tool, and it doesn’t matter as much if your actions are not actually the actions being described, as it does if the actions being described do happen.
I think people ought at least to think about stopping refering to you by name in these discussions, since what you did doesn’t actually make a particularly good example of what is being described.
Actually, looking over at Bean’s blog, I see that no one has referred to FoolishOwl by name, or to that specific incident in quite a while, so my last point is entirely irrelevant.
Foolish Owl–I blogged about this, but I don’t think I even mentioned the derailing thing. Which blogs mention you by name (besides Bean’s)?
Trish Wilson’s Blog is the only one, other than Bean’s that mentioned me by name, as far as I know. A few more mentioned the flamewar in general, like Pinko Feminist Hellcat, which described it as “how civility is used as a cudgel against women who dare take on civilly worded misogyny”. I suppose that might have lead back to the argument about the “On my desktop” thread, rather than the “civility” thread, but following it back to the “civility” thread would have lead someone to assume that it was Rad Geek and I being described using “civilly worded misogyny.”
What most worried me was a post on Bean’s blog, in which a commenter said that she hadn’t read the “civility” thread, but said that derailment was a tactic of the right wing, and that you have to insult true misogynists to shut them up. On a closer rereading, I realized that post made allowances for the idea that men might not realize they’re derailing.
On the whole, I guess I overreacted again.
Not that anyone needs my permission for this, but everyone has every right to criticize me, by name, for doing something stupid. I just want it understood that it was stupidity, not malice. Folks have every right to be mad at me, if they think I did something stupid that I should have known better. I just want it understood that it was a mistake that went *against* my intentions, not with them.
What most worried me was a post on Bean’s blog, in which a commenter said that she hadn’t read the “civility”? thread, but said that derailment was a tactic of the right wing, and that you have to insult true misogynists to shut them up. On a closer rereading, I realized that post made allowances for the idea that men might not realize they’re derailing.”
I read that post. I thought there were great points made, including the one about “true misogynists”. What those want is attention, negative’s better than none and to engage you, get you worked up, emotional, then throw some “female =weak, stupid, flakey, evil, etc” stereotype at you. Women cope with that BS in RL, but also on the internet as well.
Sometimes you want to rip throats out, or some other “parts”. Other days, more like, whatever.