I do not think this is what Cara meant to do. But I do think it is something we should be watching ourselves for when these things come up.

<3

And if we were going to have this conversation (and I think it’s one worthy of having), it’s a huge shame that it ended up happening due to a post with so many huge flaws that only served to take the focus off of the valid points that were made.

… and isn’t that just the thing?

Doesn’t a person have a right to be messy when pointing out the very real mistakes of others and how it affects them? Are we required ensure our arguments are neat and perfect before we can criticize the actions of those who hold privilege over us?

Because that, to me, is what this argument comes down to. Yes, some parts of that post were questionable, weren’t perfect criticisms. But it’s not unfortunate, then, that the post wasn’t perfect. Because what that does is put the responsibility on the unprivileged to keep the privileged from taking their arguments the wrong way. And that just shouldn’t be their responsibility. That’s fundamentally antithetical to the work that we are doing as feminists.

I say this from a place of love. I was just going to comment to say that Feministe is my favorite Major Feminist Blog because it engages these issues in the most satisfying way, to me. (Imperfectly, messily, but most in line with my own views.) And I loved guestblogging here because the community is large, and messy, but smart and thoughtful as well, and there is nothing I enjoy more than watching, and participating in, the commerce of ideas that results when you bring together a group of people like that.

But that quote caught my eye and dammit, I can’t keep my mouth shut :)

Ash Wednesday ruminations on feminism, religion, etc.

And believe me, I as a white woman, get that. I get that motion because I’ve been taught it my whole life–be general, don’t be too critical, because it would be hurtful, try to assure the people that you’re talking about that you understand them through the use of slang, etc. etc. And it sucks when all the ways you’ve been socialized to be able to speak without making waves get thrown back in your face because they do make waves, just not in the direction you’ve been socialized to look.

I’ve been there. And it sucks. And it’s hard because, while people of color certainly get how white women are trained to place ourselves in front of people of color, because we white women barely know how to understand ourselves as “white” instead of as just women, we don’t automatically or always clearly see it. That’s not an excuse. I’m just saying that wrapping your mind around the idea that the way you’ve been taught is the least hurtful way to move though the world is actually just designed to make life easier for the people in front of you is hard. And so I do have sympathy for what Van Devan and Shoot were trying to attempt and where it ended up.

But I would challenge them to consider why and how this backfired and what it means for what and why they’ve been taught to communicate in the ways they have.

As for one of the points they tried to raise and to which Lauren and Piny have alluded–there’s stuff that happens in the feminist blogosphere that, when it happens, stinks get raised. If you try to pass off something you clearly learned from someone else as an idea you came up with on your own, you always run the risk of someone calling you on it. And we’re talking about this happening at a level beyond most people’s understanding of plagiarism.

When people who participate in the feminist blogosphere and who have learned from the people here move into the wider media world, there’s not that same mechanism for saying “He, you got that idea from me!” and so I think obviously we’re moving into a space where we are going to see people’s ideas and work co-opted in ways that we at least have mechanisms for dealing with here–we can at least name that that’s what happened (as unsatisfying as that may be).

But what happens when you’re a blogger without a book deal who writes about, say, feminist socks and a blogger with a book deal who had no interest in feminist socks while online devotes a chapter or a book to how cool feminist socks are?