I have two thoughts about how to crystallize points I and others like Apostate and Donna Darko have been making about what a feminist issue is.
One example that's been much discussed lately is the Sean Bell case.
Jack states on Feministe:
“The shooting was part of a system of police brutality and injustice against communities of color - including women. The effects of this case will affect women of color who are the direct victims of police violence; trans women who are specifically targeted for and subjected to violence because of their gender and their often race; women whose families and communities are terrorized and torn apart by the police and an unjust judicial system. Therefore, Holly is arguing that this is a feminist issue because it both directly and indirectly affects many women.”
I agree with Jack that there are many feminist aspects to a number of news items that don't directly appear to be about women. But I believe that when discussed on a feminist blog, attention should be paid to the feminist implications. The posts on Feministing and Feministe focused around “a systemic pattern of police officers shooting unarmed suspects [which] disproportionately affects communities of color” (from Holly’s post) without detailing any impacts on women other than to mention that they exist.
Feminism should not ignore race; on the contrary, WOC are part of feminism, not a footnote. In my ideal world, a feminist blog should look like all the women out there who read it and also the ones who don’t. But also in my ideal world, a post about a crime with male victim(s) and male perpetrator(s), in which the women are affected only indirectly, should include some specific focus on implications to women.
Jack mentioned that these existed and listed some, but they were not mentioned in either the Sean Bell post on Feministing or the one on Feministe. For example: (1) how WOC who are direct victims of police violence are affected; (2) how trans women who are specifically targeted are affected; (3) impact on women when shooting of unarmed suspects occurs, and how the police and judicial system might be altered to be more responsive to this.
These were mentioned in Jack's post as an afterthought and a defense as to why it’s indeed a feminist issue. And looking at these issues, it is – but only if the issues impacting women are actually discussed in a non-superficial way. Otherwise it’s a solid, eloquent post on a liberal issue with latent feminist potential that settles for latency. Same as it would appear on a male-focused blog. So whether it is or is not a feminist issue misses the point. The point is – on a feminist blog, racial issues are critical – and the feminist dimension is too.
Other liberal movements not only insist on but expect that multidimensional issues be discussed with specific reference to their movement -- to the extent these issues are discussed at all. Why, within feminism, are we not to expect a nonsuperficial discussion of feminist implications? Why, when we ask for one, making crystal clear that this does not mean ignoring issues of race, poverty, orientation, etc. but actually bringing those further into the forefront, are we accused of somehow trying to evade the other issues?
And that gets into the second thought. But -- duty calls. One of my candidates dropped out yesterday and I have to refuel. So... that one will have to wait so I can do it justice. In the meantime, I'd love thoughts, opinions, critiques below.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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Police brutality is a feminist issue. Sean Bell is not a feminist issue.
Exactly.
Agreed, Donna.
And again, Octo, agreed w/ all you said in this post. I really don't understand this apparent need/demand for feminism to encompass *everything* into its definition.
Hmm...
I think I am starting to see where some of the disconnect is.
There are two:
1. People that think race issues directly affecting WoC are not feminist issues
2. The introduction of other oppressions as a feminist issue without a central woman character to tie this to the overall feminist narrative.
I think you, octogalore, fall into the second camp - the issue is not that WoC issues shouldn't be included...the problem is that issues that have no direct link to women (of color or not) are included on mainstream blogs with no tie back into the bigger issue. Is that correct?
Latoya: yes, kind of. A couple clarifications:
1) It's not just about race -- for example, your example (1) below. I think for the most part they are feminist issues. But if they have nothing to do with gender or a mix of gender and some other characteristic, they are not. eg, I am a woman and a former lawyer. If someone said to me: "lawyers suck!" that's not a feminist issue. If someone said "bitchy lawyers suck!" that's a feminist issue.
2) Similarly, if a black woman is offended by the natives in Amanda's book, that's a feminist issue because even if the natives are men, it makes a statement about a white feminist's view of race and by extension WOC. If a black woman is offended by statements about black men, it's a racial rather than a feminist issue. If she is called Mammy, that's a feminist issue. If she reads in a magazine "black people all want to be rap stars" and rightfully finds that offensive, it's not a feminist issue. If she is harrassed by an immigration official, it's a feminist issue. If she is unfairly denied a job, even if it's unclear whether it is due to gender or race, it's a feminist issue.
Sean Bell, with no link to women at all except "he's married to one and has a daughter," isn't a feminist issue. With an exploration of how police violence can have a specific gendered element, it becomes one. With an exploration of specific issues concerning black women whose husbands are dead or in jail, it becomes one. But these efforts weren't made in the treatments by Feministe and Feministing, rendering them still good pieces, but indistinguishable from what you'd find in any liberal blog.
In other words, I don't think everything that affects a woman, whether she's white, black or green, is a feminist issue. If it involves dimensions of race and gender, or any other characteristic and gender, it is.
eg: environmentalism. If an environmentalist is told she has shitty taste in music, it's not an environmental issue. If she is told that she is a "save the whales bitch" it's an environmentalist and feminist issue.
Sorry to ramble -- am I making any sense?
Amber --thanks. Yes, feminism is like the Ginger Rogers of liberal causes -- doing the same dance the others are doing, only backwards and in heels, and it still isn't comprehensive enough.
BTW, Latoya, welcome, it's really great to see you here! I've been really enjoying your blog so far.
One further thing -- you say above "I think you, octogalore, fall into the second camp - the issue is not that WoC issues shouldn't be included...the problem is that issues that have no direct link to women (of color or not) are included on mainstream blogs with no tie back into the bigger issue. Is that correct?"
Yes. Just one small thing. I don't think one issue's necessarily "the bigger issue." Just that it should be the issue of predominance for a feminist blog, just like race should be for a racial justice blog.
Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing your articles, let me know when they come out. Are you on the west coast?
On the east coast.
The Suze Orman interview is out on the Clutch site.
The Bitch Magazine article just went to press - should hit newsstands June 1.
I see your points, but then how do you deal with interconnected issues? For example, Racialicious is a blog about race and pop culture - but we STAY off topic. We try to at least rally around current events but stuff like feminism, globalization, the global food crisis, etc etc is all fair game for us to discuss.
It doesn't change the fact that it is a race blog - we just go off into some other stuff sometimes. Then, again, our readers don't really protest when we do because they enjoy the conversation.
I guess I am confused as to why people would be upset when you relate more things back to your core cause. (For example, men of color generally fucking hate feminism - but I notice when we get into discussions on our blog about it, there is less outright dismissal and more skeptical confusion. Which I consider progress considering how hostile things can get IRL.)
Also, did you read the quotes I selected from Joan Morgan?
Latoya -- here is my favorite quote from Morgan:
"Finally, I realized that in the face of sexism it didn’t matter what I called myself. Semantics would not save me from the jerks I was bound to run into if I continued to do this for a living nor would it save women from the violence of teenage boys who suffered from their own misconceptions of power and manhood. If I truly believed that the empowerment of the black community had to include its women, or that sexism stood stubbornly in the way of black men and women loving each other or sistas loving themselves, if acknowledged this both in print and in person then in any sexist’s eyes I was a feminist."
Why are so many cool people on the east coast?
I will check out the Orman interview and the Bitch Mag, thanks.
As to: "I am confused as to why people would be upset when you relate more things back to your core cause." That's the thing, I have no issues with interconnected issues if they ARE related back to the core cause.
For a little experiment, I looked at the last 25 posts on your blog and the last 25 posts on Feministe. All 25/25 of your posts had some relation to the core issue of race, although you touched upon feminism, issues of nationality, music, media, etc. But you kept on theme, and readers got a sense of a growing and developing theme, rather than a scattershot of issues.
Feministe, on the other hand, and don't get me wrong, I like the site quite a bit, had 18 out of 25 articles relating in some way to feminism. And I interpreted that liberally -- some of these were just about the bloggers themselves -- I counted those. There were 7 articles with no interconnection.
Again -- I am all for intersectionality. To the point where I hope someday it isn't even called that, as to me that seems like footnoting issues like race. I view issues of relevance to black women, disabled women, etc. as smack-in-the-sweet-spot feminism, not some kind of intellectual variety. But I don't view non-gender-related lefty issues as good material for a feminist blog. There are many places where you can get these.
For example, the treatment on your blog of the Sean Bell issue was much more layered and interesting than on most feminist blogs. You have a ton of expertise and were able to hit a concise and coherent theme without the "see, we care about this!" or rambly treatment that appeared on the feminist sites. There's a reason for specialization.
But specialization doesn't mean narrow -- like your site, an ideal feminist site should be expert at reaching far to touch on feminism w/r/t issues experienced by many different kinds of feminists, at all income levels, of all races, in diffferent countries. There's so much material there that the focus should be on doing the constant research that you do for your site. Not on reflexively reaching for the same issues the male liberal blogs talk about. But on capturing material that people might not see otherwise.
I'm new to reading your blog, but I've felt more inspired by it than by the major feminist sites lately. I think feminism can be better, and that being better doesn't mean being "whiter" or more "upper class," but being more focused on its theme and therefore more communicative to ALL women.
Yes, feminism should be intersectional, because there isn't a universal experience of being a woman - it's tied up with class, race sexuality and hundreds of other things. Feminism should explore these things rather than taking one experience as paradigmatic (or assigning varied experience as happening to all women).
But to me it seems other movements should apply feminist insights as, well, it's not as if the areas of race, class and sexuality and so on , don't contain women.
The Sean Bell issue hasn't really permiated my consciousness, so I may be lost in this discussion.
"But to me it seems other movements should apply feminist insights as, well, it's not as if the areas of race, class and sexuality and so on, don't contain women."
I agree. That's a key issue here. It wouldn't be as critical for feminism to stay focused if other movements included it substantively, but they don't. Most guys, and some women, involved in other movements are loath to identify that way. Whereas feminists are typically happy to identify as pro-other causes.
That's brilliant at 2:37pm, Octo.
I was going to say the exact same thing here:
It doesn't change the fact that it is a race blog - we just go off into some other stuff sometimes.
Exactly. There are no posts on Racialicious not directly connected to race but Feministe and Feministing have posts that have nothing to do with feminism.
Elaine Vigneault said "all issues are feminist issues." I feel overburdened for feminism! Are all issues anti-racist issues? Is animal rights an anti-racist issue? NO. Is environmentalism an anti-racist issue? If you're talking about environmental racism but usually no. Is erectile dysfunction an anti-racist issue? NO. Is feminism an anti-racist issue? HELL YES BUT YOU USUALLY CAN'T GET PEOPLE ESP MEN OF COLOR TO SEE THAT.
Why is it completely one-sided? Because racism affects men and sexism for the most part does not. Both men and women hate women.
"Why is it completely one-sided? Because racism affects men and sexism for the most part does not. Both men and women hate women."
Interesting. Dramatic, but you got something there, IMO. There's a big distinction there, and that's a convincing reason for it.
On Latoya's site, she has some great quotes from Joan Morgan. One is above, another is: "Racism and the will to survive it creates a sense of intra-racial loyalty that makes it impossible for black women to turn our backs on black men - even in their ugliest and most sexist of moments."
But at the same time, that same intra-racial loyalty should make it impossible for black men to turn their backs on black women in the context of feminism. I'm not a black woman, but reading Davis, Walker, and others, it appears that black men do not find it impossible to reject black women (or white women) for asserting feminist principles. White men, similarl, reject white/black/brown women for asserting feminist principles.
So the deference we show to men isn't returned. That doesn't mean we should not strongly support other justice movements. But where other justice movements don't prioritize feminism, why do we get called on the carpet for doing so?
Octogalore: what a clear and incisive post! You totally cut through all the confusion and silliness that I've seen lately.
Jack's logic seems to be "X affects women, therefore X is a feminist issue." In that case, toe-stubbing is a feminist issue, because women stub their toes. Which makes feminism meaningless.
For any movement to have meaning, it has to limit its focus. For feminism this means focusing on gendered issues--which does NOT mean ignoring gendered issues that are ALSO racial or class issues (which many white feminists have been guilty of ignoring).
E.g., if I stub my toe because I'm wearing ridiculous shoes that prevent me from walking properly and that are marketed to women, THAT is a feminist issue.
The same holds true if I'm wearing ridiculous shoes that are marketed only to NATIVE women (as I am a Native woman). And this is what many white feminists need to pay more attention to: the way sexism works on women of color, not just the way it works on white women.
But the problems that affect both Native men and Native women equally are not feminist issues, though they are important issues, and while I care about them as a Native American and as a person, I do not care about them specifically *as a feminist.* And I don't want to discuss those issues with feminists, because why would I? I can discuss them just as well with my brothers. Better, in fact. Similarly I don't care about domestic violence *as an anti-racist*, nor do I want to discuss domestic violence among Native activists UNLESS there is a focus on how this problem affects Native communities particularly.
Does this mean feminists shouldn't care about racism? Of course not. And it doesn't mean that feminist groups can't or shouldn't work with anti-racist groups--QUITE THE CONTRARY. All it means is that the PRIMARY focus of feminism ought to be gender (and it should pay attention to race and class and sexuality and environmentalism as they intersect with gender). Just as the PRIMARY focus of anti-racism ought to be race (paying attention to gender etc. as they intersect with race).
Oh, and a lot of people seem to be arguing that [Anything] is a [Anything else] issue. E.g. race is a feminist issue, environmentalism is a race issue, labor is an LGBT issue...etc.
To which my answer is: "sometimes. But not always."
Because yeah, on some deep level, all injustices are connected. But that's just not a very useful way of thinking about things ALL THE TIME. It's much more useful to break it down into parts because some of those parts are very different from each other--e.g. the dynamics of gender oppression are often quite different from those of race oppression or class oppression. So looking at them as separate serves a very useful purpose. It's all very well to make big general statements about how "it's all connected," but when it comes to concrete action you have to look at the particulars, which involves noticing differences as well as similarities.
ladyvetinari, welcome! So glad to see you here!
"It's all very well to make big general statements about how "it's all connected," but when it comes to concrete action you have to look at the particulars, which involves noticing differences as well as similarities."
That's a great point and actually what I want to focus on in the next post -- concrete action. That should be the gist here, right, more so than bloglandia intellectualizing? The more amorphous and "we're about everything" a movement gets, the less effective it gets, IMO.
And, great point about who you want to discuss the various issues with at length. Native activists have an important charge and should not be pulled off that central theme, although certainly it would include DV in Native communities. Same with feminism.
You're right that because some white feminists have ignored race and class issues, any discussion of focus makes people rightly concerned about narrowness of the kind of women's issues included. But I think if the focus is one of keeping the movement about gender, it actually becomes more useful to all women. As you said, you have outlets to discuss pure race issues, but feminism should be the place to discuss issues distinct to women of different races. And if it isn't, then it needs to get better at that.
Hmm,
Octogalore, I see your points.
I still think we are talking about two sep issues though. If you want to keep feminism gender based, without ignoring intersectionality, that would be cool. But that doesn't happen. A lot of times, issues that impact women of color directly are overlooked or marginalized, or the racism of certain feminists turns whole groups off. Like I saw you engaged with that writer on feministe with those long babbling posts - but I wouldn't fuck with her as she used two phrases in a negative way "black nationalism" and "hijabis."
For some reason, people see expressions African-American pride and think that means we're taking over. Hardly. We're fighting for equal representation. Also, in terms of Islam/Feminism, the issue is really complicated. Some Muslim nations treat women like shit. Some don't. Some Muslimahs want feminism. Some Muslimahs are feminists. Some Muslimahs are not. Some women want to be liberated from an oppressive as gov't that uses Islam to justify shitty treatment.
Feminism needs to understand these nuances.
However, I think that things could be explained better on feminist blogs. I feel like they are doing hit-and-run on these issues. It's kind of like trying to serve someone a cocktail but not bothering to mix the ingredients. And I think, in some cases, that's why the commenters say and do things that can be construed as racist. They really have no clue about why this topic (like police brutality or college racism) relates to feminism so they end up attacking the topic.
And I am also disappointed in how selective feminists are in their coverage. So, Sean Bell is a feminist issue, but Dunbar Village isn't? You have low income African American women being prisoners in their own development, the victims of horrific sexual assault, the NAACP and Al Sharpton coming down to talk to the victims and ending up on the side of the rapists - and still feminism is silent. I just searched feministing and feministe and there is not one mention of Dunbar Village.
So there's all that.
To specifically address your questions -
"But at the same time, that same intra-racial loyalty should make it impossible for black men to turn their backs on black women in the context of feminism. I'm not a black woman, but reading Davis, Walker, and others, it appears that black men do not find it impossible to reject black women (or white women) for asserting feminist principles. White men, similarl, reject white/black/brown women for asserting feminist principles."
That's actually a big bone of contention in the black community. Next week, we are going to talk about interracial dating and that is going to bring out all kinds of shit about the black gender wars. Yes, we are more invested than our men and we often catch a lot of shit for it. But it isn't as simple as deferring to a man's agenda. There is a whole lot wrapped up in that like the ideas of black community, black love, beauty standards, etc.
Latoya – I agree, we may be talking about separate issues. If you feel keeping feminism gender-based w/o ignoring intersectionality is compatible with what you would ideally want, then we are indeed on the same page on that.
Why it doesn’t happen, I agree too, is an issue to contend with. Don’t get me wrong, w/r/t Jasmine on Feministe, I too was severely turned off by those phrases and I can imagine your reaction. I didn’t feel all her points should be dismissed as a rant, though, as there was some interesting substance in there. Do I get why you’d be turned off? Yeah.
So there are indeed two issues here – keep the focus on gender, which is what I’ve been emphasizing, and make sure it includes all women and takes into account the nuances involved in different cultures and with different races. And to do that, some discussion of race is indeed critical. But this discussion should be tied to the various issues pertaining to women. Why Muslimahs view feminism in a unique way. Why a woman expressing African-American pride is not attempting to manipulate but instead be heard. It’s a critical issue, definitely.
And one that ties in with the focus on women, in fact. Because feminists of different varieties need to understand one another. Turning feminist blogs into catch-all liberal issue conglomerates doesn’t advance either the feminist focus nor the intersectional goals, IMO.
Good point about selective focus. There are aspects of Sean Bell that relate to feminism – but those don’t get discussed, the discussion is not different from what you’d get elsewhere, and no liberal worth her salt isn’t already reading those treatments elsewhere. And Dunbar Village, a critical feminist issue, somehow isn’t treated as such. That is pretty shocking.
I’ll look forward to the discussion of interracial dating. And I know it’s not simply deferring to a man’s agenda, but a complex issue of community. I just wish the deference appeared to be going back and forth equivalently.
Thought provoking comment --thanks.
So, Sean Bell is a feminist issue, but Dunbar Village isn't? You have low income African American women being prisoners in their own development, the victims of horrific sexual assault, the NAACP and Al Sharpton coming down to talk to the victims and ending up on the side of the rapists - and still feminism is silent. I just searched feministing and feministe and there is not one mention of Dunbar Village.
Now, see, THIS is a real problem. I don't think you're disagreeing with either me or Octogalore, Latoya: because I would (and I think Octogalore would) say that Sean Bell is not a feminist issue but Dunbar village IS. And the Big White Feminist Blogs' ignorance of Dunbar village is also a feminist issue.
I think the problem is that big blogs like Feministe and Feministing ignore gendered issues that apply to women of color.
And when they try to be "intersectional," they say things like "Sean Bell is a feminist issue" rather than "Dunbar Village is a feminist issue."
These are huge missteps.
Are there any blogs that we think do a good job of handling gendered issues that apply to ALL women?
Maybe we could come up with a list.
I think Shakesville is the best of the "big blogs" on this issue.
LV: agree with everything you said. In fact, the "trying" to be intersectional really nails it. When "trying" to be intersectional ignores issues in which women of color are at the forefront and focuses instead on issues in which men of color are centered, it does WOC no favors.
Certainly, the need to understand racial dynamics is critical for feminists. So there's a responsibility for feminists, and folks who care about progressive issues generally, to investigate Sean Bell and other issues. But a feminist blog should serve its constituents and really do the intersectional job of looking at where race and gender intersect. eg: Dunbar Village.
I agree: love Shakesville. And I like zuzu at Feministe. I think overall that Feministing and Feministe are decent sites, but if we're talking about the kind of in-depth and focused treatment on feminism and its intersections that a Racialicious provides on race and its intersections, they could do a better job.
Are there any blogs that we think do a good job of handling gendered issues that apply to ALL women?
Really like Echidne too.
(That's shocking that they didn't mention the Dunbar Village rape/violence on Feministing and Feministe. I read about it in other places so didn't notice the omission.)
Octo: even if you're right, who in the world cares? Is there some sort of score sheet we're all supposed to be using if we're "feminist" blogs, to make sure we get no jelly in our peanut butter?
If so, I'm infinitely glad that even when I did identify as a feminist I didn't bother to have "a feminist blog." Blinders like that are useless to anyone.
Trinity, bully for you that you don't care. This is the sort of thing trolls go to the trouble of commenting to say, especially on feminist blogs. Thanks for letting us know.
And what blinders, exactly?
Sorry, Trin, gonna have to strike as nonresponsive. Apparently, you didn't read the comments (or possibly the post) above, or you would understand the following:
1) some of us do care about the issue discussed, and not just me. And several are WOC -- or, do folks only count as WOC when you approve?
2) the issue discussed appears to be something different from what you're complaining about;
3) because, if you'd read the actual post and/or understood it, you'd get that I'm actually militating for MORE jelly, but keeping the peanut butter in the sandwich;
4) for someone who just pulled such an uncharacteristic non-sequitur, it's a bit rich to mention "blinders"
5) And finally, I love "even if you're right." The suggestion that this possibility is so distant as to warrant "even" is charming as your first contribution here in a bit. Warms my heart, really.
As it happens, I am under the perhaps grandiose notion that this phenomenon happens more than just once in a blue moon, so I think my ego will emerge intact. However, I would suggest that a more diplomatic tone might be helpful in future.
Okay, let me try to understand this better, because it clearly matters a lot to you, Octo, and I really don't understand. I'm not angry, I'm *puzzled*. I'm not sure how to explain my puzzlement in a way that doesn't seem like an attack, as my last comment did. I respect you a lot, and that's exactly why this post confused me terribly: because you usually have something really interesting to say, and I just can't figure out what this says. It read at first like "you're feminists, don't post about Bell unless you're making it clear it's a non-sequitur" and that not only makes no sense, it's wildly unlike what I usually understand you to up to. So now let me try myself to figure out what I've missed, since clearly I missed something.
I'm finding myself confused by most of them, but I think this might be part of what I miss:
"For any movement to have meaning, it has to limit its focus. For feminism this means focusing on gendered issues--which does NOT mean ignoring gendered issues that are ALSO racial or class issues (which many white feminists have been guilty of ignoring)."
That looks like what it's saying isn't who blogs about what but the "movement's" focus. So the idea is some sort of "not diluting feminism." But "feminism" is larger than any one blogger or blog. And I'd be a damn fool to think you're saying something like "the big blogs are the face of feminism, and if they're off topic, Feminism with a Big F gets diluted."
So the idea is that... people (In the blogoverse? In activism generally?) are getting side-tracked, and for some reason this is a problem. But where my gears grind and sputter (and again, I'm sure this is me, as so many people get it and agree with you) is: for whom, and how? Individual bloggers of course can be scattered or not on what they blog about, and this is no sin.
So the best I can figure is that this would serve, if anything, as an admonition to big blogs not to get off-topic. And that opens up the serious question of "given intersectionality, what IS off-topic? Anything?"
Surely something is, and it seems you're saying that what that something is is anything that is not explicitly tied back to women. But is that so? I'm not entirely sure. It makes some sense to me, but it also doesn't to me at the same time... because I think a big part of the way we blog (and in a larger sense, the way we do activism) has to do with supporting our allies on some level.
For me personally -- and again I don't mean here to appeal to some Great Duty I think all bloggers have -- this sort of thing happened recently. When Palfrey died, I was in the thick of a bunch of big events in disability blogging. I felt on fire for one issue, and the other affected me less directly. Ren spoke a lot about it, and about who was blogging and who was not, and I realized that while it's perfectly all right for me to focus where I wished, it just made no sense for me not to say something.
Now, in this case, part of why not is that my blog isn't single-issue; her death can "go under" issues about sex positivity or sex work, both of which I've blogged about before and will again. But I think the bigger issue was that even though I have a single-issue blog, what I pick to blog about is affected by the people I have bonds with and ties to, and sometimes *I feel that* the right thing to do is to blog about the other thing... whether I can explicitly tie it back to what I'm thinking of as My Big Issue or not.
Which is why I'm a bit confused about why we need the level of clarity you're striving for on what counts as feminist and what does not.
So... as the comments have said, we should have primary focuses (at least if we're single-issue, which I think most of us actually aren't anyway, but some surely are). But what really comes from that? That's what I'm not sure I understand.
gah, even though I DON'T have a single-issue blog
Trin – I appreciate the second comment and find it a more effective statement of where you are coming from. I am glad you are speaking up, I would rather you do so and that we have a discussion than dodge controversy. I think it's possible where there's mutual respect (thanks for that) to get to either hashed-out understanding or occasional agreement to disagree on some issues, without rancor.
First of all, I’m not saying feminists shouldn’t post about Bell. I’m saying blogs that are feminist-focused blogs should focus around feminist issues and Bell isn’t one. Many feminists have blogs with varied topics and Bell’s certainly a good topic. But not a feminist one. Go to Racialicious, you won’t find posts about white dudes without some kind of race tie-in, for example. Go to a political blog, the posts are going to have a political tie-in. Same deal.
Certainly, feminism is larger than any one blog. But women come to feminist-centered blogs to charge our feminist batteries. Some women have claimed they got to feminism itself, and IRL activism, through online exposure. Many of us have a constrained workday with a few breaks and it’s good to have places to go where you are getting a focused theme. NOT, to repeat, focused on any one race, any one ability level, any one income level or geography. But focused around gender at all of these different intersections.
Because yeah, I do feel feminism is as important as the other lefty causes. Would you say – why is it important for race to be a common denominator of anti-racist sites? I don’t hear anyone saying that, and for good reason. That’s all I’m saying.
Of course, individual bloggers can be scattered on a personal or generally-focused blog. I veer from workplace feminism to stripping, for shit’s sake. But people know coming to my site that they’re getting the ramblings of someone with a short attention span who is capable of sticking out like a sore thumb in any sizeable group of people who think alike. You know a few of the groups I mean, I’m sure.
On the other hand, folks go to Feministe, Feministing, etc. for Feminism. They’re a bigger blog with a larger mandate. The big feminist blogs are how many women with sedentary lives or jobs get to feminism. So yes, the blogs can be a pipeline to the movement, can reflect it, and therefore their message and its consistency and focus is, IMO, important.
As to what is off-topic? Well, if something touches specifically upon gender, it’s not off-topic. As in: women (whether cis- or trans-) are affected in a way men are not. Racial injustice as specifically suffered by women of a certain race – that’s on-topic. Choices made about reproduction for disabled women – that’s on-topic. Homophobia or transphobia as experienced by lesbians or transwomen – that’s on-topic. Male on male violence that affects all relatives of the victim which would automatically include female relatives – not on-topic.
“because I think a big part of the way we blog (and in a larger sense, the way we do activism) has to do with supporting our allies on some level.”
Of course, but wouldn’t you think it odd if an anti-racist blog had articles focusing on women’s rights without any race angle? Do you ever see that? Not holding my breath. Yet I have MOC friends who are very supportive of feminism and contribute on feminist blogs – but on anti-racist blogs, they focus on race – as they should. Similarly, I participate on a number of anti-racist blogs and in anti-racist IRL activism. I consider myself a good ally. But still believe that feminist blogs should link to feminism – again, with conscious effort to be about both WOC and white women.
What really comes from having a common theme? Are you asking the folks at Racialicious that, or at Taylor Marsh, or DefeatPoverty.com? Is feminism less critical of a mission? I don’t think so. Focusing on feminism makes a statement: women are important and here’s a forum for us. We still have glass ceilings. We still get penalized for parenting and we’re still covering more than our share of shifts. We face a higher degree of poverty. We rarely hear people complain about “welfare kings.” There is a whole separate vocabulary for talking about us: assertive=>aggressive; forceful=>bitchy; outgoing=desperate; successful hot 40+ guy => cougar. Sometimes when we are allowed into the club, whether that’s the union or the boardroom, our words aren’t heard until a man echoes them or restates them (sometimes less effectively). But here’s a place for us. It will focus around our issues. It will focus around all our issues, not just those of us who are white and straight and mainstream. We shouldn’t get tossed out for loving and supporting our brothers and husbands and friends and sons and fathers, but we need a place where our issues don’t just stem as footnotes from their news, but where our news forms the issues that are discussed.
If you do not see value in that, then I guess we will have to respectfully disagree.
And I am also disappointed in how selective feminists are in their coverage. So, Sean Bell is a feminist issue, but Dunbar Village isn't?
That's a big one. They didn't write about it because they didn't care. They cared about huge racial issues like Jena 6 and Sean Bell and I care too. Women of color problems like Jersey Four or Dunbar Village don't get covered unless they're covering their ass. At the time, they didn't need to cover their ass. They're going through a cover your ass period right now but not much is being done.
because, if you'd read the actual post and/or understood it, you'd get that I'm actually militating for MORE jelly, but keeping the peanut butter in the sandwich
Because yeah, I do feel feminism is as important as the other lefty causes. Would you say – why is it important for race to be a common denominator of anti-racist sites? I don’t hear anyone saying that, and for good reason. That’s all I’m saying.
Of course, but wouldn’t you think it odd if an anti-racist blog had articles focusing on women’s rights without any race angle? Do you ever see that? Not holding my breath.
Whoohoo!
Okay, let me try to understand this better, because it clearly matters a lot to you, Octo, and I really don't understand. I'm not angry, I'm *puzzled*. That's exactly why this post confused me terribly: because you usually have something really interesting to say, and I just can't figure out what this says.
There's nothing confusing about it if you look at the three snippets above. White feminists should be intersectional and men of color should be too.
"Certainly, feminism is larger than any one blog. But women come to feminist-centered blogs to charge our feminist batteries. Some women have claimed they got to feminism itself, and IRL activism, through online exposure. Many of us have a constrained workday with a few breaks and it’s good to have places to go where you are getting a focused theme. NOT, to repeat, focused on any one race, any one ability level, any one income level or geography. But focused around gender at all of these different intersections."
Sure, but I worry that this kind of thing contributes to people being really *bad* allies. For example, I've been posting almost non-stop on disability issues, for carnivals, for BADD, etc -- and NOT A ONE of my usual blogfriends even mentioned BADD was going on. I find that seriously disheartening (and others find similar things seriously disheartening wrt their own issues) and I'm not sure I want to encourage further topic narrowing, for that sort of reason.
Now, I could appeal to people by saying that some of us are WWD so feminists "have to pay attention," but that would really be beside the point. Most of the BADD contributors didn't blog specifically about WWD and the intersection of disability issues and feminism.
And the reason it bothers me that no one picked it up is not that "some of us are women too dammit," but the whole idea that no one is paying attention. Of course any given ally may be absorbed in her own issues -- particularly considering that May 1 is a rather overloaded day in terms of general significance AND that Palfrey's suicide had just happened TOO.
Still: disheartening stuff when something like BADD is *annual*. So to see posts where people are vehemently arguing for *narrowed* focuses, for women to be able to "charge their batteries" without worrying about other sets of issues... what does that say to me about my people and how much my people matter? Why do the things that matter to me only matter to everyone else either because I'm not a man, or because some people like me are not men either? What does it mean that that doesn't go into the "batteries?"
I came to feminism through the online world as well. I have to say, though, that the people who really wanted men not to matter and men to be a side point never made sense to me. Yeah, a feminist blog shouldn't turn into a blog *about men*, I get that. But I never really quite got why it was such a horrendous faux pas to talk "too much" about how patriarchy hurts men too, or "too much" about male survivors, or... it just never made sense to me because the system is the same.
So what am I saying? I'm not saying that I disagree with you that a major feminist blog that suddenly takes a turn for the MENMENMEN and blogs about Sean Bell and then this begins a lengthy series of posts about police brutality that specifically affects men and posts about women become few and far between is getting off topic. I just... well, maybe I don't go over Feministe with enough of a fine-toothed comb these days (I generally only look at posts by Holly anyway), but I never saw that happen.
I'd actually be a lot more disheartened to see a big blog NOT have at least a handful of words about big news like the Sean Bell thing. A little blog I get: those are at least in part personal. But a blog that is big enough to be *about* news? That would just seem completely wrong to me, especially if the justification were "but he's not a woman!"
If an analog of the Ashley treatment happened tomorrow to a boy, would you be facepalming if Feministe commented on it? Maybe not, given that the treatment originally happened to a girl. Still, I'd feel deeply disheartened if big blogs didn't pick that up, because boys are off-topic.
“ I worry that this kind of thing contributes to people being really *bad* allies.”
Sure, but all your allies aren’t posting on big single-issue-focused blogs. I think many of them have personal or multiple-issue blogs. And because they are your allies, they should contribute to BADD. If the big feminist blogs contributed to every issue where they have allies, while that seems in some way like the right thing to do, they’d stop being focused on feminism.
For example, if I had a friend on an anti-racist blog, I would find it odd to ask her to comment on something I care about that has no relationship to race. If she also contributed to a liberal blog or personal blog, I would hope that she would pay my issues some attention.
“I have to say, though, that the people who really wanted men not to matter and men to be a side point never made sense to me.”
Who is arguing men don’t matter? I’m arguing that on a feminist blog, gender should be the focus, which certainly involves men and how feminist concepts affect them. But expecting feminism to be the focus is, again, no more and no less than what other specialty blogs expect regarding their issues. Would you say that because anti-racist blogs focus on POC that they’re saying whites don’t matter? I don’t read it that way.
I think we see things differently re the charter of a big blog. I don’t see big blogs as *about* news. I have about 3-4 places I go for news, I imagine most of us do. I don’t expect to get my world news or my liberal news from a feminist or anti-racist or anti-poverty blog.
“If an analog of the Ashley treatment happened tomorrow to a boy, would you be facepalming if Feministe commented on it?”
I don’t think so; I think surgery to keep a child childlike does impact on gender. I’d expect this to be presented through a feminist lens on a feminist site, but the issue strikes me as an appropriate one to discuss.
"I think we see things differently re the charter of a big blog. I don’t see big blogs as *about* news. I have about 3-4 places I go for news, I imagine most of us do. I don’t expect to get my world news or my liberal news from a feminist or anti-racist or anti-poverty blog."
Okay. I'm not all that big on television and I find that online news often doesn't cover things I care about most, much less in depth... I like to see blog posts wherein people are talking about what news means or how it affects them and THEN looking up what exactly happened as per the WAPO or whoever. So a big blog leaving out some big item of news because it happened to a guy doesn't parse to me the way it does to you.
trinity,
Feminism SHOULD center disabled women, sex workers, poor women, immigrant women and women of color. That's different from veering off into disability or poverty issues themselves. The common denominator should be WOMEN.
Men should be included on feminist blogs but only if it's related to women's issues. Including discussios of how traditional gender roles hurt men. I'M THE ONE CONSTANTLY BRINGING UP TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY AND GENDER ROLES AS IT PERTAINS TO VIOLENCE BUT NO ONE ELSE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT GENDER.
Sean Bell is not a feminist issue.
Great discussion here, Octo...
I didn't detail on my Kent State post (to give my last post as an example), how both war and fascism target women, but assumed everyone knows that. Half of the victims at Kent were women; the very emotional face of an Italian woman with a Renaissance face (as James Michener put it), became "the official face" of the event in the Pulitzer Prize winning photo. So, to me, Kent State was/is a "feminist issue" without having to explain that. (But perhaps I should do it more often?)
Daisy, if they didn't specifically target women, it's not a feminist issue.
Octo, you said this at Apostate's:
“This is another sneaky technique to put women last.” I am so glad you are not the ever-increasing line for the kool aid everyone seems to be drinking. AMAZING work here.
Isn't this the same race trumps gender koolaid Obamaites are drinking?
Daisy, if they didn't specifically target women, it's not a feminist issue.
Agreed. And I would add, in these kinds of situations, that even if the incident itself didn't have feminist implications, what *is* a feminist issue would be things such as media portrayal.
Oh, Daisy, I loved your post, but I gotta go with Donna and Amber on this. When “half of those affected” are women, it’s not gender-based. Drinking milk isn’t a feminist issue. Eating diet food may be a feminist issue. Wearing clothes isn’t a feminist issue. Wearing dresses may be a feminist issue. Having hands isn’t a feminist issue. Having boobs is a feminist issue.
As Amber suggests, the fact that an emotional face of woman was featured as the “official face” is a feminist issue having to do with depiction of women by media.
So yeah, I gotta say women deserve better. Would POC put up with our arguing that the fires in CA were a racial issue JUST because some victims were POC? Hell no! Now, if the writer discussed treatment of affected parties in New Orleans vs Malibu based on racial balance of populations, THAT is a racial issue. That’s pretty clear, no? So it should be similarly clear wrt gender.
Trinity,
If you're still reading, I generally agree with your post. Feminism should include all kinds of topics. All this came about when Apostate, Octo and I thought feminism was being REPLACED by anti-racism and sexism which I'm sure you'd agree is pretty antithetical to feminism.
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