Blokes at Crikey are wondering why they don’t have more female subscribers, and “Where are Australia’s female political bloggers?”
Excerpts from the thread:
Possum Comitatus:
“Something that has surprised me for a while on the gender balance of the Australian political net is the lack of big female political bloggers. We have Kim and Anna over at LP as a group blog, while Tigtog and Lauredhel at Hoyden touch on politics occasionally and do it well – but where are the dedicated Australian political bloggers of the likes of Wonkette or Pandagon that we see in the US?
Let’s do our bit to find them. Know any female political bloggers in Australia? If so, drop a link in comments and we’ll list them here – big or small, old or new – and hopefully give them some exposure. If you’re an Australian female political blogger, don’t be shy – tell us about your blog.”
Dave Gaukroger:
“I agree that more female voices online would be a good thing, but there is still the ’shrill vs confident’ gender problem to overcome. Until online discussion as a whole becomes a bit more civil I think we’ll continue to see women ignore the rabble.”
Jason Wilson:
“Poss, I don’t want to preempt what will no doubt be a long list of female political bloggers, but is it possible that snark culture in big-p Political blogs might be off-putting for some women? Let me be clear, I don’t mind a bit of snark myself, but is it possible that it’s a macho mode of speech and interaction that a lot of women can’t be bothered with?”
daiskmeliadorn:
“i always considered most of my LJ to be ‘political’: in the ‘personal is political’ way; when i was talking about my honours thesis on sexuality; when i wrote about my own or others’ activism; and when i occasionally discussed stuff that was in the (mainstream) news of the day/related to the “circus down in canberra”. of course there is overlap between all these aspects of ‘politics’.” (and all of daiskmeliadorn’s comment @5)
BH:
“oss – I think it is partly time constraints. Working life, family life, keeping relationships in tact, etc. take a fair amount of time. […] My daughter and daughtersinlaw just do not have any time in their busy working/home lives to indulge in the way I do. But they are very, very politically astute.”
Categories: gender & feminism, Politics
QOTD for IWD: Aung San Suu Kyi 
Grabbing somebody is Assault, and sexual touch makes it Sexual Assault. Stop minimising this. #rapeculture101 
BFTP Friday Hoyden: Emma Goldman 
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Hoyden About Town 
Not to be too obtuse or anything, but isn’t there a monthly Down Under Carnival that highlights political blogging from women in Australia and New Zealand? One would think people could look there.
Yay! Thanks for quoting me 😀
I have a question for you people about one of the themes in the Crikey thread. It’s the idea that “Women *are* really into politics, but not psephology”. (e.g. see this comment from Ben Raue) From dictionary.com, psephology is the study of political elections. The main psephology blogs they refer to are Pollytics and PollBludger, although I think Ben Raue is putting his own blog, Tallyroom, in the same category. I don’t know anything about psephology but Pollytics and PollBludger seem to take a particularly mathematical, stats-based approach to it? While I imagine there are plenty of other perspectives available.
I’m just wondering how gender fits in there… do you think that (the ways that we are socialised into) gender influences whether people are interested in psephology and/or this particular approach to psephology? I can’t remember where, but Ben said that he’d found the gender split offline as well. I’m thinking also about how when I did maths at uni a few years ago, there were certainly a good number of women in the class, but it was still seen as unusual for a woman to be really interested in advanced maths. On the other hand, Ben’s Tallyroom blog does cover other dimensions to elections, and he believes that all his regular commenters are men.
braindump! sorry for that – would love to hear anyone’s thoughts 🙂
Anna: but that’s about chickstuff, not politics.
Right, sorry, my ladybrain keeps getting confused.
“Where are Australia’s female political bloggers?”
Here!
You “touch on politics occasionally”??? THIS IS A POLITICAL BLOG. OMG.
See, women aren’t invisible! Occasionally it’s possible to catch a glimpse of us through the haze of male privilege. If men try real hard.
Oh, wait. “Big-p Political.” That means “about dudes.” I forgot.
Softest bullet.
I’m guilty of defining politics very narrowly in that post – but to the audience of my blog that’s what politics means to them – party and electoral politics and legislation. It’s from that perspective I was asking where the female political bloggers are.
Even when we open out the definition as widely as possible, the Australian political blogosphere still seems to be be heavily weighted to males. I was just asking why that might be the case on the one hand, and if it’s just my surfing habits that are causing it on the other, then who are the female political bloggers that I’m missing so we can give them a bit of a wider exposure to others that don’t know about them.
softestbullet: Well, we also post about gardening, and food, and parenting, and life; and, of course, a whole lot about politics that isn’t specifically about elections and votes and laws. For me, part of that is a deliberate political strategy: I am a whole human, I have a context, and a community, and a body, and emotions, and vulnerabilities, and caring responsibilities. People may often think of women that way, but perhaps less so of women with disabilities.
This way of thinking and presenting is pretty thoroughly deprecated in some masculine-coded online spaces.
A bucket of what Lauredhel & Tigtog blog about is about legislation. It includes legislation about breast feeding, midwifery, and disability.
I posted a whole freaking list on my political blog just yesterday!
ShinyNewCoin wins the internets today IMO, with her tweet in response to the last comment you quoted, by “BH”: It’s the “they’re all too busy serving our drinks” effect. Teh Brilliance!
)
(So, it’s OK chaps, carry on!
Working life, family life, keeping relationships in tact, etc. take a fair amount of time.
There are so many things wrong with this comment it makes my head hurt.
I think the fact that BH recognises that all that stuff is work, and that all that work is being done by women, while he is let off doing it, is no bad start.
@Helen, as much as I’d like to win the internets for my very own, the serving drinks comment was Lauredhel’s own brilliance.
In in response the the post, I can’t express my irritation. Most of the 50 odd blogs in my reader are by women and only two are *not* political. The commenters at Crikey (when I read it earlier this afternoon at least) were actively working to not think about it critically and just offer platitudes like “the women can’t take the heat” followed up by the wonderful: “women will ignore the rabble” or ” the macho speak that women can’t be bothered with” idea. I can only read “rabble” and “macho speak” to mean “the entire world” and “be bothered with” to mean “marginalised/ignored/made invisible/belittled”. But sure, make it like a *choice* on the part of women to *not* engage. That’s really progressive./sarcasm.
BH doesn’t get cookies for an inferred “recognises gender imbalance of labour” meaning when implying that work, family and “keeping relationships intact” is a combination of jobs performed only by women and which render our poor girl-brains too addled to care about “real” politics or blogging.
Oh yay! The thread at Larvatus Prodeo is racing towards a bingo as fast as it can. It tuns out that asking to be referred to as a woman rather than as a female means that you are being mean and nasty and misandrist.
QoT # 12: BH is a woman. Given what I’ve read of her comments (as a regular Pollbludger reader), it is highly likely that her remarks at Pollytics were made from her own individual experience.
orlando # 13: BH is a woman.
Can I make the simple point that sometimes women will comment on blogs using their own experience as a reference point. Sometimes what she says may appear inappropriate, especially to those who aren’t familiar with her previous comments, but that that in itself doesn’t (and shouldn’t) invalidate her contribution.
There were a couple of comments that Possum made on the thread at LP that were… interesting to me.
The first:
And that’s simply because however one wants to define politics, wherever I go males seem to outweigh females in the blogging stakes on the numbers. Hence, if that result came about because of my surfing patterns, I asked what those blogs were so I could give them a bit of exposure from my traffic that they might not ordinarily get.
Why the assumption that these bloggers would need or even want that traffic? If women are avoiding certain haunts, why would you try to send the commenters at said haunts to where they are?
The Second:
The MSM has a rather solid proportion of females/women (cross out offending description) that focus on the electoral end of politic
This comment I just found funny. He’s saying both females and women to avoid offending anyone*, and then uses the word “that”, as if women are objects. As opposed to “women who focus…” Lol.
*It’s not really that hard. Female = adjective. Woman = noun. Women who blog, female bloggers.
I’m a bit bogged-down in contemplating the oft-recurring trope – accepted in so many places as a truism – that men who harass and abuse and insult women online would never do such a thing ‘in real life’. Boggle.
(A common variation is the assertion that they would ‘never get away with it in real life’.)
Well, I safely define politics as being about “things that matter to me”. (I think this is a good definition.) Thus, the political bloggers I read are predominately female, mostly white (oh self, you fail), and often living with a disability, either their own or that of someone they care for. I actually go *days* without reading anything on the internet written by men, except for a few comments here and there.
Where are all the male political bloggers, anyway? Why aren’t they writing about politics that matter to me? Can someone recommend me a good political blog that is written by a man who focuses on issues of politics that are important to me?
Maybe the problem isn’t “men aren’t writing politics”, but “men aren’t writing the politics that matter to me” or even “I’m not *reading* or seeking out men’s opinions on the things that matter to me, because I’m too busy reading from perspectives that are relevant to my experience. ” Should I be branching out?
Possum, can you perhaps recommend some male australian bloggers who write about disability-related politics? Also on the ongoing issues around midwivery and breastfeeding. I’m part of a group that’s discussing the last two as part of a talk on midwivery and breastfeeding in Nova Scotia, and am hoping to intelligently discuss how different it is in Australia. Surely there must be male political bloggers discussing that, since it’s what I think is politics.
Wow, big apologies to BH. I don’t know why I coded her comment as male. And apologies also to Lauredhel for ascribing her brilliant comment to someone else! Totally failed at Twitter and the Internets in general yesterday – and as I was home with sick kid rather than diving in for quick comment in between commitments, I don’t even have an excuse!
(A common variation is the assertion that they ‘would never get away with it in real life’)
Oh, don’t we all WISH that were true.
We probably read BH as male because she differentiated her work/time experience from her daughters’, but I see that was likely to be referring to her being at a different stage of her life. QoT, it seems to me her precise point was that their brains were not in any way “addled”, but that they have no time left over for personal activities. I’m actually kind of disappointed that what I thought was an astute man turned out to be a routinely observant woman.
I personally think the dismissive tone of much of the thread at LP epitomises why women tend to avoid ‘political’ blogs (narrowly construed, as let’s not take into account women’s position on what constitutes politics, hell no.). I’ve also been contemplating this a bit, and I think there’s a major difference between the blogs I read that are written by Australian women and ‘political blogs’, in that the former tend to focus on the marginal, attempting to destabilise the centre, whilst the latter tend to reiterate the centre by dismissing, mocking, attacking or whatever, those trying to resist the marginalisation of the marginal. I’ve observed a number of threads at LP which have wound up with mostly male commenters forcing mostly women commenters to prove the marginalisation of the marginal (whether it’s women’s experience, or that of people with disabilities etc etc), instead of pausing, and thinking deeply about how they are centreing and re-centreing their own experience. It would seem that this is coded as ‘stoush’, at least sometimes. But to me, it’s an extremely retrogressive move – that is, it’s a very poor progressive political style, IMO, because it entrenches the status quo over and over again, and holds those who are already vulnerable responsible for being ‘hard enough’ (‘man enough’?) to participate on their terms – which unsurprisingly makes minority voices unwilling to participate. Which brings me to the point which Anna Winters tried to raise: why, whenever this issue is raised, does it become about ‘what’s wrong with the women?’ instead of ‘what’s wrong with how men on political blogs think politics ought to be done?’ That is precisely the same issue at work again.
Also, grrr. This shit really fucking pisses me off. Do these people have no capacity to reflect critically on their own ways of thinking about the world?
Oh ffs. Maybe if boys looked outside of boy world they’d see that the Others are blogging? I’m another Not Political blogger because I only deal with the Soft Topics like yanno birthrape, the drive to ban midwifery, the drive to control women’s human rights and the like. Perhaps if I blogged about something of more interest to less than 50% of the population I might attract more attention? Attention from dudes being what every blogger desires, natch. Please define politics for us not-men that we may bask in the warmth of your attention, oh dudely ones.
IBTP. <- extra points for dudes who can identify that tag without google.
Well better go change nappies and prepare for my lord and master’s return from the real work of the day. Must remove extraneous body hair, cook six course meal and slip into life threatening pointy shoes for strip routine to keep the L&M interested in me since I clearly can’t be trusted to partake in any kind of discussion that doesn’t involve nappies. Can’t *headdesk* since I might smudge my make up.
Pharoah,
On the language – I tried that and still got into trouble. I’ve just given up and take the bumps willingly!
On the assumption that bloggers want traffic – it’s the technological default of the internet to be open. If someone doesn’t want external or random traffic, putting a blog behind a wall is the solution.
When you say, “If women are avoiding certain haunts, why would you try to send the commenters at said haunts to where they are?”
Fair enough. But what if they’re just like *most other bloggers* where they’d like a larger readership but struggle to be heard, seen or noticed above the wider internet fray?
Anna,
Not only cannot I not recommend some male Australian blogger who writes about those issues, I can’t recommend a male Australian journalist either.
WildlyParenthetical
I didn’t ask the question of “what’s wrong with the women?”, I’m asking why the proportion of female bloggers in Australia that cover the same political issues as the mainstream political press is significantly different to what is happening in US, especially in light of the strong female presence in Australia’s MSM on mainstream politics.
The majority of the top ten mainstream political analysts in the Australian MSM are women, yet, that strength in heritage media, for some bunch of reasons, hasn’t flowed through to the blogosphere on this same issue set. Hence I was interested to know peoples thoughts on why.
It wasn’t an accusation that “you women folk need to stop talking about knitting and get your act together!” (as it seems to have been ludicrously portrayed in some places) – It was an honest question on what it is with the Australian internet that causes a hole in female representation in the blogosphere over the very set of issues that women dominate at the heritage media level.
One thing that has been very illuminating with this, is that – on both sides – the worst of motives is far too often assumed.
My head is spinning from all of this. First the natural reaction was ‘But we ARE political bloggers. AND we’re women!’. The question was then clarified to mean a more specific version of ‘politics’. And that could have been explored. Some stuff got raised but it got left to the wayside. Then it changed again to why aren’t women participating at big political sites like Crikey and LP. And that to me is a different issue. I’ve just posted something similar to your comment (though far less eloquent) over at mine.
Possum – if you read carefully you will note that WP did not suggest for a second that you asked what’s wrong with women, but rather pointed out that the conversation over at LP descended in to that quite quickly.
Whoops – when I said “I’ve just posted something similar to your comment…” I was talking to you WP.
@Possum,
What’s stopping you from writing about disability-related legislation? Or the midwivery & breast feeding legislation? I mean, I’m able-bodied, child-free, and barren, and have written about all those things. (Granted, not from Australian POV.)
That’s politics. Am I incorrect as reading your comment as you don’t think they are?
Possum Comitatus: I know you didn’t put it that way, but the comments over at yours degenerated very swiftly into that, which is why Anna Winters responded in the way she did.
I think part of the problem here, and it’s epitomised by you seeming not to really read all of my comment, is that part of why women bloggers tend not to participate in political blogging as you have delineated it (and that’s part of the problem) is for political reasons: because they don’t like how mainstream political blogging functions, and are working to intervene in that. That that is not recognised as political blogging is a significant part of the problem here.
Sorry to double-comment, but I had to point this out: Possum, when you are pointing out the discrepancy between female MSM commentators and female bloggers, you’re leaving out a key point: that women who are commentators in the MSM are playing by particular rules. They’re playing by rules about what counts as political, as has been set up and maintained over time. As many feminists would and do point out, that tends to mean that marginal voices aren’t heard. So yes, there are women commentators: they’re the ones who are willing and able and good at playing by MSM rules. This would seem to me to imply that when women do politics their own ways, as often happens on blogs, they’ll often choose to focus on the marginal, as I explained above, and this is a) not palatable for MSM, which does tend to reinforce the centre (which is why the only women we see in the MSM seem to adhere to the existing and limited definition of ‘big-p politics’) and b) apparently not ‘real politics’ according to those who consider themselves in a position to define it.
I get what you’re saying about the difference between Australia and America, but you seem to be characterising the lack of women who discuss ‘big-p politics’ in ways that you identify as properly political as a problem, as if we’re not living up to standards reflected in the US blogosphere, rather than acknowledging that women are blogging about politics, on their own terms, in ways that might mean you (and the MSM, and the male commentators on political sites, and…) need to rethink what ‘political’ means.
Maybe that’s clearer?
WP – your last comment is good and describes what is probably a big part of it. But I think it misses another big part of the problem. Yes, many women see the current system and want to work outside it and create a new one. They need to be recognised and our idea of politics needs to be broadened.
But/And it is also true that lots of women want to work within the current system, and their voices are being overlooked and they’re being pushed out. So in that sense I don’t think what Possum’s doing is wring in limiting the definition of politics in the way he is. Because he wants to know why the women aren’t there, too. As one of the women who is in there, I’d like to see more women being able to participate more equally.
As I said over at LP, I get the importance of creating new spaces where the old oppressive system doesn’t apply. But for some of us it isn’t enough, and for me saying that the women are just doing it differently isn’t a good enough answer.
A few responses to read:
Where are all the men bloggers? by Skud at Geek Feminism Blog
”Fixing to have a meltdown cos women dare to have a contrary opinion” at fuckpoliteness
Why are Women Not Blogging Politics? at The Memes of Production
Anna & WildlyParenthetical – What’s stopping me from writing about disability-related legislation?
The fact that I know absolutely nothing about it!
I readily agree that politics, literally, is a really broad spectrum – and one of the things that I’ve found interesting (I’m slow on the uptake) is that the breadth of political topics and female political blogging generally in Australia is much wider than what the male end of the spectrum is producing here. The range of topics is much much larger with female authored blogs.
But I’m still left wondering what it is about Australia and its online environment that leads to a comparatively small number of Australian female bloggers that focus on the same set of political issues that the major media focuses upon, especially considering the US experience and the strong number of female political analysts on those issues that exist in the heritage media.
I’m not meaning to compare one interpretation of politics to another in terms of value – I’m actually studiously and (apparently dismally!) trying to avoid doing that very thing.
The reason I delineated a particular type of politics is simply because of the size with which that particular delineation operates – it fills every news bulletin, every newspaper, every news radio show, every day. That’s not a value judgement – it’s just simply describing the distribution of political topics that exist in those media forms that reach 95% of the Australian population everyday.
Hence, in the context of those particular topics – the question of the relatively small representation of female political bloggers was asked.
While the reasons surrounding why female participation on mainstream political blogs at the comment level seems to becoming pretty clear, the small representation at the author level (again, on analyses of those mainstream topics – mainstream topics that women close to dominate in quality at the heritage media level) is still something that few people have tried to explain.
If someone came up to me, and about a random country that I knew nothing of, stated that the majority of the top ten mainstream media political analysts were female and then asked how many female political bloggers do I think there would be that cover those same mainstream topics – I’d answer “plenty”. But what is happening in Australia seems to be pretty unique in two ways. Firstly, the set of topics usually chosen as a focus point for Australia female political bloggers are different to those mainstream topics, and secondly, the relatively small number of female blog authors that cover those mainstream topics in Australia is a big contrast to the experience of other English speaking countries where those mainstream female blogging voices are plentiful.
So if (to quote) “women bloggers tend not to participate in political blogging as I have delineated it”… because of political reasons, wouldn’t it seem to be a uniquely Australian set of political reasons?
Apols if I misconstrued what anyone was saying earlier.
And thanks to Anna W for saying a few things far better than I managed to!
Mmm, I see what you’re saying, Anna Winter. And at some level, I don’t straightforwardly disagree. But my point is that this inside/outside distinction, whereby women are considered to be ‘not doing politics’ is key in producing this sense, for women, that they are not welcome on ‘big-p political’ blogs. And not just a sense: it’s a pretty active exclusion. Like the current LP thread about this: numerous women have walked away from it. The Rossiter thread prompted me to give up on that space, and I know that I’m not alone – others are at least taking a break. So yes, I want women’s voices included in those spaces – but through the changing of those spaces, not by the changing of women’s voices, because the ‘choice’ between those two is political itself. And that involves a reconceptualisation of what is politics, IMO. And this returns, I think, to the issues of centre/margin politics, and the way that ‘big-p political’ blogs think that it’s the margin’s responsibility to ‘man up’ and convince them of the worth of listening to other voices. Given that the centre is so massively privileged, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that such blogs consider their own ethos with a critical eye to how they perpetually marginalised those who are already marginalised by their refusal to be critically self-reflexive. I think we need only look at the hard work that women attempt to do in threads on LP, only to be mocked or dismissed or to have it aggressively demanded of them that they do the work of proving the privilege of others, and the way that they tend to leave those threads, and even the blog, possibly temporarily, possibly permanently, to see the politics of these political blogs.
I don’t want to revisit the argument again, particularly, but your response to my voicing of my dislike of LP’s style of engagement on that thread was effectively to say that I just had to deal with it the way it was. When that is said to marginal voices over and over, it kinda reiterates the same problematic way of doing things, and it says that that’s okay. [shrug]. Obviously, it’s up to you and the other LPers how you run the blog, but if you’re wondering why women don’t involve themselves, well, I’m back to critical self-reflexivity, I’m afraid. None of this, I want to add, is designed as an attack. I’d love to think I could engage with the variety of perspectives offered at LP, and I’d love to see that kind of change happen. But it’s a political choice, whether one continually plays educator while discussions are maintained as a particular level of superficiality (which, tbh, is what ‘big-p politics’ says to me), because people would rather make other, more marginal voices do the work of convincing them they’re privileged than be critical self-reflexive, or whether one has the conversation with those who are willing to have them in meaningful ways, where marginality is considered and respect, and commenters realise that their own behaviour is political itself.
I hope this is productive, rather than dragging us back into the same old stuff… I do think there’s an important point here that keeps being missed, so I’m trying to articulate it as clearly as I can.
Why don’t you?
This might be a starting point to moving forward: delineate clearly what you think those issues are. Perhaps, at the same time, you could reflect on what issues aren’t in there, and start to hypothesise why they’re not in there.
At the risk of also revisiting that argument (I’d also like not to) that wasn’t exactly what I meant. My point was more along the lines of what I’ve written here in my last comment. I know you don’t agree, but I think that Rossiter thread was a relatively good one. Perhaps not in keeping with others’ definitions of safe space, but it stayed on the right side of robust disagreement not bullying. The fact that we disagree only proves my point, I think – women aren’t all the same, and some of us like the challenge of having our ideas tested and refined. This does require leaving aside personal feelings and – I really can’t stress this enough – I get why it’s a difficult thing for activists to do because you’re trying to do something else. But the activism and the refining of arguments are *both* important and neither of us will get very far without the other. So no, you don’t *have* to learn to suck it up, but some women do, because that’s how debate progresses, and we eventually stop having to have the fight.
Slavery was seriously debated for many years, and it involved a lot of not taking it personally and engaging with people who thought it was OK to buy and sell people. The truly evil people were never convinced, but there were plenty of people who could be largely described as “good” who needed to be convinced. That wouldn’t have happened if everyone who opposed slavery refused to engage in difficult arguments.
What’s bothering me about a lot of feminist and progressive debate at the moment is that the two different styles don’t respect what the other is doing. There’s a difference between saying it’s not for me and saying that anyone who can stomach it is against you.
Lauredhel went:
“Why don’t you?”
Because my life has never taken me down that route.
“This might be a starting point to moving forward: delineate clearly what you think those issues are. Perhaps, at the same time, you could reflect on what issues aren’t in there, and start to hypothesise why they’re not in there.”
Those issues are ultimately one issue – who controls the ultimate political power of the State and what they are doing with that power.
@ Rachel in #17: Understood. But BH’s comment still really riles me, and I think a lot of it is to do with the basic-statement-of-fact phrasing. It’s “women do a lot of stuff and don’t have free time for blogging” instead of “women are still shouldered with the majority of housework and childrearing and the responsibility for keeping their relationships together by our society … and don’t have free time for blogging.”
The lack-of-free-time-to-blog of women isn’t a natural state of affairs at which we just shrug and say, “Oh well, let’s leave the chicks to the private sphere and the menfolk to the public”, and the kinds of guys who are just so surprised, honest they are, it’s totally weird how few [“real”/”serious”] political bloggers are women aren’t going to think, “Gee, is my expectation that cleaning the bathroom is a woman’s job somehow a contributing factor?” especially when comments like BH’s seem to let them off the hook.
Just my reading, and I’ll admit I’m not in the best frame of mind for breaking things down at the moment.
I really do like having my ideas tested and refined, Anna, (I’m a freaking academic for chrissakes, it’s all I do!) and I’m not impressed with you thinking otherwise. I don’t see that thread as having tested or refined anything, though, at all. Flat out denial of privilege isn’t testing or refining; it’s a refusal to be critically self-reflexive, to interrogate what you take as ‘common sense’. I’m going to stop talking about that thread now, because it’s irritating me too much.
But this requirement that you leave aside personal feelings – quite aside from you assuming I’m an activist who doesn’t want to refine arguments, or that my personal feelings are the reason I don’t want to go back to LP – don’t you see how that reiterates privilege?? In fact, I don’t think that all ‘personal feelings’ are set aside: some are actively encouraged (just like I don’t believe that men are more rational than women; it’s that some emotions are coded as ‘rational’, whilst others are ‘irrational’). The forms of engagement require that those who are most hurt by the kinds of conversation that are going on to set themselves aside and ‘man up’ to do politics as it has always been done. What I learn from the slavery story is not that we ought to man up, but that how we do politics ought to change, because it’s problematic that the responsibility for political change fall so heavily on the shoulders of those harmed by a particular practice, whilst those who are privileged by it remain permitted to be oblivious. Instead of knee-jerkily deciding someone is making it up when they point out our responsibility for something (or challenging them, allegedly to ‘refine’ their ideas), progressive politics ought to involve the taking of responsibility for examining ourselves. That is, we need to learn to do politics differently, and that is what I think these ‘absent women bloggers’ are doing.
I’m certainly not saying that anyone who can stomach it is against you: I don’t, for example, see you as ‘against me’. I suspect we share a huge range of perspectives on numerous things. I’m saying that particular spaces operate in particular ways, and that that itself is political. The kinds of spaces in which women blog about political issues tend to be spaces that acknowledge that; their commitment to that political stance means that crossing over in ‘big-p political’ spaces involves a giving up of a particular politics. In this sense, it’s not just bullying that is a problem, and nor should women be fine with everything except bullying. Obviously, there are choices here, and I’m not requiring that everything change to fit this perspective; but I tend not to see it as ‘women ought to be willing to set aside personal feelings (those emotional creatures) and engage in ‘big p politics” (and I know you don’t see it that way either): but I do see it as meaning that if ‘big p political’ blogs want to encourage the involvement of political women bloggers and commentators, that’s a major change that would be required. I think you’re absolutely right that the focus winds up being a bit ‘what’s wrong with the women?’ in these conversations; I think that avoiding that requires an interrogation of the politics of conversation on ‘big p political’ blogs; and the above is pretty much how I see it.
I’m a bit commented out just now, but I’ll be back later.
Yes, the difference *I* would like to highlight is ‘testing and refining ideas’ and smug self congratulatory slagging off/viciousness/underhanded smackdowns/a refusal to engage/mocking and derision of the commenter/ the commenter’s entire perspective. I think it’s a little misleading to pretend a problem with the latter is a problem with the former.
@Possum: You write “The reason I delineated a particular type of politics is simply because of the size with which that particular delineation operates – it fills every news bulletin, every newspaper, every news radio show, every day.”
That, to me, is reason enough to be blogging about other kinds of politics.
Later, you say (re: disability): “Because my life has never taken me down that route.”
My co-blogger Liz Henry recently spoke at a conference and mentioned that on average, each of us presently-able-bodied types will spend 8 years disabled, at some point in our lives. And those we love will also spend an average of 8 years disabled. That’s more than enough incentive for me to learn about the issues and address them politically.
On the language – I tried that and still got into trouble. I’ve just given up and take the bumps willingly!
I was just amused that, in trying to avoid offence, you called women objects. I’m not saying you did it on purpose, I’m saying it’s funny that you did.
And everyone on the LP thread is saying the same thing. Women = noun, female = adjective.
On the assumption that bloggers want traffic – it’s the technological default of the internet to be open. If someone doesn’t want external or random traffic, putting a blog behind a wall is the solution.
I didn’t say bloggers didn’t want traffic. I said it was presumptuous to assume that they need OR want your traffic.
When you say, “If women are avoiding certain haunts, why would you try to send the commenters at said haunts to where they are?”
Fair enough. But what if they’re just like *most other bloggers* where they’d like a larger readership but struggle to be heard, seen or noticed above the wider internet fray?
And that’s where your missing the point. These female bloggers aren’t failing to be heard. They’re failing to be heard by you. The assumption that because you don’t know about a blog, that blog obviously needs more traffic, is presumptuous at best.
Just popping my head up to wave at you all. This conversation all happened while I was having a very busy day and night yesterday, and today I’ve been sick and sleepy, so I’m just catching up on all the discussions.
WP, at the risk of going around in circles, at the end of the day this is about our personal feelings. You saw the Rossiter thread as LP about denial of privilege and found it offensive and difficult to be a part of. I found it a useful and respectful debate. The thread had quite a large proportion of women arguing different sides of it. The fact that some women found it difficult and chose to stay away whereas other women didn’t should demonstrate that it is a very personal line. It was not “objectively” a bad thread – and the fact that women who identify as feminist all see it so differently is what I’m trying to get at. This stuff is messy and difficult to pin down because there is no standard way of blogging that all women want to see. Suggesting that all women are doing a different kind of blogging is as problematic when feminists do it as when anti-feminists do it.
Take Sophie Black in today’s Crikey for instance:
Skud went:
“That, to me, is reason enough to be blogging about other kinds of politics.”
Sure – and more power to everybody that does it!
Pharoah,
Remember, I was asking about female political bloggers of that particular definition. My traffic is politicians, their staffers, mainstream media, public servants, lobbyists, corporate executives, the NGO sector, academics plus a set of general political insiders plus a set of the very politically knowledgeable and politically interested.
To not want that traffic is to not want to speak to power. I’m sure some don’t want to do such a thing – but I bet London to a Brick it’s not very many.
And just how do you know that some of those bloggers aren’t failing to be heard in terms of their struggle to obtain a larger readership? How do you know that they don’t want to be read by a larger number of people?
I know full well that some of them do – they dropped links to their own site in the comment stream!
The biggest impediment to new media voices in this country is exposure. It is very hard to get exposure. It is very hard to get people to know you exist. One of things that I’ve always done since I became a high traffic blogger is to help others achieve what I did, simply because others helped me do it when I started out. Whether it was linking as widely as possible in articles through to actually running a specialised blog from my old wordpress site that hosted posts written by others leveraging off my main site traffic – it’s about helping new media voices come through to larger prominence.
What I find astonishing – absolutely astonishing – is the notion that the offering of such exposure is actually, somehow, a presumptuous disgrace!
Good grief!
Possum, I certainly don’t find it presumptuous. I do get that your motivations are generous and wanting to give back some of what others have given you. I also very much appreciate you coming over here to engage with the arguments.
That said, there are some of the ways that your post and some subsequent comments were framed that are problematic. I can see that you’ve taken some of those criticisms on board already, and I hope that some of the others can be discussed without you feeling too piled upon.
I’d like other commentors here to remember that Possum is attempting to reply to a lot of people at once here. Perhaps keeping your own comments brief and precise (and remembering to distinguish between Possum and his blogs’ commentors and LP’s commentors) could help keep the conversation focussed.
Look, Possum, here’s the thing:
You said you define political-blogging as being about legislation (as well as electoral stuff and party stuff).
Legislation is being written and passed of some controversy regarding disability (for example, the stuff about tightening restrictions on who gets a parking pass for reserved spots), breast feeding, and midwivery.
How is that not on your radar, if your radar includes legislation?
To me, it sounds like you really mean “Politics is what I care about.” Which is fine – politics is what I care about, too, but I don’t pretend that there aren’t people blogging about politics that are focused on things I don’t care about. There are obviously lots of Canadian bloggers writing about the politics of gun control legislation, but fucked if I care. But I don’t consider their blogs to be “occasionally touching on politics” because they aren’t blogging about the politics I care about.
Anna – I’m not defining “political blogging” as anything!
I was wondering why there’s a relative lack of female bloggers than focus on the same mainstream topics that exist in the nations major media.
There’s plenty that focus their political blogging elsewhere, on other topics – and more power to them. But *at the same time*, there appears to be a far smaller proportion of Australian female bloggers that focus on the same set of issues that the major media is running with on any given day than in other comparable countries.
Which is strange considering that the best political analysts in that major media are themselves female.
I’ve also got a reply to other stuff sitting in moderation.
[My posts may appear out of order because I’m in a different time zone.]
Possum, in comment 7, you said:
I didn’t pull legislation, party, and electorial politics out of thin air. I pulled it out of your comments.
To me, with the clarification that I live in the Frozen North of Canada, you sound like you’re moving the goal posts. Are you concerned about why certain types of people aren’t reading Crikey? Are you wondering where all the female political bloggers are? Are you wondering why women aren’t writing about legislation, party, and electorial politics? Are you wondering why women aren’t writing about what the MSM is writing about?
I suspect you’re actually meaning all of those things, but I can’t answer them all. Women aren’t a homogenus group that all agree on everything, as you can probably tell just by reading this thread, and the disagreements between women here and elsewhere on the subject. There is no Answer to your Question, because the question isn’t worded properly. Women are individuals, kinda like men.
I’m not reading Crikey because I never heard of it before this thread. I don’t know why, say, Skud or Anna Wintour or Chally or Tigtog or Lauredhel or any other people make the decisions they do on what to read online, or what to blog about, unless they spell those decisions out (and perhaps not even then).
So, in short: There is no answer to your questions.
I’m still confused at why blogging about legislation doesn’t include the legislation I’ve made reference to. If the answer is, as it sounds to me (I could be misinterpreting your earlier statement) because it never occured to you as these things don’t affect you, will be you including discussions about such legislation in the future? I would be interested in more perspectives on disability-related legislation, as well as midwivery-related legislation. As much as I love HaT, I should really broaden my reading on that subject.
Every last one of the topics Anna is talking about has been quite heavily covered in the Australian mainstream media in recent weeks and months. I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to engage with that.
You’ll also likely get along a little better here if you drop the Saviour complex. A lot of the answers are right here, and in other threads on the subject, if you look for them and listen – including the responses questioning your assumptions and terms.
possum, on which issues women bloggers aren’t writing about:
Do you seriously think women bloggers, including feminist bloggers, aren’t engaging with the issue of who controls the ultimate political power of the State and what they’re doing with that power? Do you really think we only do that at Hoyden “occasionally”? How many Australian women bloggers do you currently read?
QoT 39 – your comments actually made me register here.
I am sorry you have misread my comments on Possum’s site. I thought I began the comment with “I think it is partly time constraints”.
Being a political tragic since schools days in the 50s I have always made the time to do or read what I wanted to politically. I have also been lucky enough to have a considerate, helpful and allround good bloke as husband).
QoT “…..Gee, is my expectation that cleaning the bathroom is a woman’s job somehow a contributing factor?” especially when comments like BH’s seem to let them off the hook.” What’s going on – why not give the bloke the cleaning stuff and say go do it. I’m not letting them off the hook – you are. Even my sons clean the damn bathroom!!
You and I are obviously of different generations. We can agree to differ but I see too many women who are too busy. I admire all they do because it is far more than in my time. It is their choice in the long run.
I’m retired – I’m having heaps of fun trawling around the web instead of reading newspapers. And I’m also having fun being heavily involved in community voluntary work with other women. And over the year trawling the footpaths handing out ‘stuff’ to get my preferred side of politics into Govt.
Lauredhel went:
[“Every last one of the topics Anna is talking about has been quite heavily covered in the Australian mainstream media in recent weeks and months. I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to engage with that.”]
Sure they were. And…….?
That there’s a wide definition of “political” blogging – sure there is.
That some of the things that some blogs talk about are the same as some of the things that the major media talks about – sure there is.
I’m not sure what you’re asking me?
[“You’ll also likely get along a little better here if you drop the Saviour complex.”]
Hang on – I was basically accused of engaging in some kind of dubious, unwanted online behaviour caused by some dodgy set of presumptions I apparently have, using a level of evidence amounting to exactly zero. If defending myself against that by explaining exactly what I was doing and why, is now a “Saviour Complex”, then we have two very different definitions of the term.
[“A lot of the answers are right here, and in other threads on the subject, if you look for them and listen – including the responses questioning your assumptions and terms.”]
Let’s put the key assumption that is causing the largest problem – why I’m only focusing on a particular set of issues for a working definition of the type of political blogging I’m asking about – another way.
On any given day in Australia, over 10,000 public policy decisions would be made by our three tiers of government across the entire country. Every single day, from the smallest planning change that affects no more than a handful of people, through to the largest health reform that will affect everyone.
However, any given major media organisation simply doesn’t have the space to cover every one of those decisions. It is physically impossible to do so.
There is barely the space to cover more than 20 or so political issues on a given day in a given media organisation.
As a result, those issues which get coverage are generally those that affect the largest possible majority of the population and where the issues are roughly evenly divided in terms of “who gets power” – the politics side, and “what they are doing with it” -the policy side.
I fully appreciate that a great many female bloggers cover some of those issues – and do so in a far more comprehensive manner than any media organisation may give it. I fully appreciate that all sorts of legislative and public policy topics are covered by a great many Australian female bloggers.
But *even accepting all of those things as undeniably true* – the question still remains as to why there is a lack of Oz female bloggers compared to other English speaking countries, that focus, on a daily basis, on those same issues that affect the largest possible majority of the population. The comparative lack of Oz female bloggers that compete, *nearly entirely*, on the same issue space as the political reporting of the mainstream media.
There are plenty of Oz female bloggers that cover some of that stuff (and more power to them!), but why isnt there many that cover what the mainstream media defines as daily politics too? Especially when the Australian MSM on political analysis is dominated in the quality stakes by females?
I’m not sure what assumption I have actually made there since the mainstream political news cycle and it’s contents is not of my making, I didn’t invent it into reality – it exists and 95% of the adult population experience it daily.
That’s exactly the reason why a lot of women and especially feminist bloggers concentrate on the other issues. Because they are not getting press, and if we don’t cover them then who will?
Anna (Winter), I truly don’t understand. You write on LP that the real question is “why are so many women avoiding the men of the political blogosphere?”, then when I and others offer an answer, you decide that this is ‘personal’ because there are women like you and other women feel fine about LP? Obviously you feel fine. I’m not denying that. Obviously I, and others, don’t. You appeared to be a bit unhappy about that situation, and suggesting that it was a problem, in your use of ‘so many women’… and now you’re saying it’s a problem with individuals and that ‘objectively’ (and I appreciate the scare quotes, but why is this word even the word to be used there, then?) these threads aren’t exclusive? I admit to being confused. I also think you’re attempting to individualise/personalise my problems with LP in order to depoliticise them, or to resist my coding of them as political. Which I think is uncool, but I’ll admit I’m confused enough that I don’t understand quite what’s going on. Do you think that the fact that many women avoid ‘big p political’ blogs is for personal, not political reasons? And if so, why do you think the personal is not political in this case?
I never meant to suggest that *all* women were doing a different kind of blogging; I was talking about the women who are not being recognised as ‘political bloggers’ because they don’t toe the line of a particular conception of what ‘political’ means (but I apologise if I implied/expressed myself otherwise). I apologise for not giving due credit to you and the other women who work in those spaces – I don’t doubt you do great and important work. Yet your quotes from Crikey make me kinda sad: clearly whatever the female 50% of the editorial team is doing isn’t speaking to an awful lot of women. I also suspect that the problem about blogs is that they’re never just constituted by the posts, but by the comments. This is what makes me sad about Sophie Black’s comment: clearly they feel like they are overlooked by other women, (you’re not chopped liver!) yet that doesn’t meant that other women are wrong about it being a macho space, and after all, Crikey’s commentariat is predominantly made up of men. Just because there are women involved, unfortunately, doesn’t inherently make it a space that values women’s contributions. Which returns us to the politics of these spaces, and the swiftness with which those voices which indicate the privileged nature of the majority of perspectives offered are silenced. Anyway, enough from me, I think!
Lauredhel went:
[“Do you seriously think women bloggers, including feminist bloggers, aren’t engaging with the issue of who controls the ultimate political power of the State and what they’re doing with that power?”]
I have never said once that they havent.
[“Do you really think we only do that at Hoyden “occasionally”?”]
No – what I think you do “occasionally” at Hoydon is deal with the *same* political issues of the day that the rest of the media does, which covers the largest possible majority of the population.
I completely and utterly agree with you tigtog!
Wait, what?
“which covers the largest possible majority of the population.”
Wouldn’t that be talking about women? I don’t see a lot of MSM discussion on politics focusing on so-called women’s issues, though.
It’s late here, though. I may be completely lost.
@Possum: You wrote, “What I find astonishing – absolutely astonishing – is the notion that the offering of such exposure [links, traffic, etc] is actually, somehow, a presumptuous disgrace!”
I have only two things to say to that:
Results 1 – 10 of about 77,700 for pollytics blog. (0.37 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 2,030,000 for “hoyden about town” blog. (0.43 seconds)
You’re offering Hoyden About Town traffic? How gracious of you.
Possum:
[“Every last one of the topics Anna is talking about has been quite heavily covered in the Australian mainstream media in recent weeks and months. I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to engage with that.”]
Sure they were. And…….?
For fucks sake! Her comment was a direct response to one of yours:
I was wondering why there’s a relative lack of female bloggers than focus on the same mainstream topics that exist in the nations major media.
She was answering that! She was saying, actually yes, these issues have been covered by the mainstream media. Get the fuck over yourself!
Google “where are all the women bloggers?” and it becomes clear that the question “where are all the women bloggers?” is not at all specific to Australia, but happens everywhere that the concept of the public sphere is gendered, leaving certain things excluded from the sphere of “politics”. It is also quite clear to me, as someone studying Australian political blogs by women, that a lack of political blogs by women (or even a lack of engagement by women in online political debate, as you later claimed was your question) is not something anyone needs to worry about. Instead what you should worry about is why many people consistently fail to notice that women are writing political blogs and engaging in political debate.
There are plenty of Oz female bloggers that cover some of that stuff (and more power to them!), but why isnt there many that cover what the mainstream media defines as daily politics too? Especially when the Australian MSM on political analysis is dominated in the quality stakes by females?
I’m not sure what assumption I have actually made there since the mainstream political news cycle and it’s contents is not of my making, I didn’t invent it into reality – it exists and 95% of the adult population experience it daily.
I echo what WildlyParenthetical has been saying, which is that the most political thing a blog can do is challenge what is accepted as political by the mainstream media. In fact this is the essence of the political – decentering discourses of power. If you’re asking why more Australian blogs by women don’t uphold the status quo of the mainstream media, then you’re not asking about “political blogs” at all, you’re asking about something else (gatewatching or pollwatching, maybe?). Also, it still seems as though you haven’t read her comments at all.
To try and answer one of your questions Possum – about why women don’t cover MSM politics – what Tigtog said (and I note you agreed with) and also what has been said by other commenters here – our voices get drowned out and we aren’t taken seriously. We have to prove that our opinion is based on fact not feeling, and then defend our position basically until the cows come home.
Kim and Anna Winter have done a great job of establishing themselves as genuine thoughtful commentators at LP but I remember others such as weathergirl who were hounded many times when they dared have an opinion. There are only so many times you can be called shrill, emotional or have someone discussing the likelihood that you are having your period before you decide you have better things to do with your life. Please note I am not suggesting that you at any time have ever condoned or engaged in this behaviour, and neither have most commenters at LP. As always it is the few who make it suck.
As an aside it is interesting that LP can have non political threads such as the Open Condemnation threads (which I love) and Saturday Salon (which can get quite political) and Lazy Sunday etc as regular features but still be regarded as a political blog. But here, where we still cover politics quite a bit, we are only ‘occassionally’ political (I’m taking this to mean that we only occassionally blog about what’s political according to the MSM). Interesting to reflect on though.
Possum:
Hang on – I was basically accused of engaging in some kind of dubious, unwanted online behaviour caused by some dodgy set of presumptions I apparently have, using a level of evidence amounting to exactly zero. If defending myself against that by explaining exactly what I was doing and why, is now a “Saviour Complex”, then we have two very different definitions of the term.
No, you were accused of being presumptuous, of assuming that because you didn’t know about a blog, that obviously it doesn’t have traffic. Do you want me to bring up those quotes again?
@frankie: “I echo what WildlyParenthetical has been saying, which is that the most political thing a blog can do is challenge what is accepted as political by the mainstream media. In fact this is the essence of the political – decentering discourses of power. If you’re asking why more Australian blogs by women don’t uphold the status quo of the mainstream media, then you’re not asking about “political blogs” at all, you’re asking about something else.”
*stands up and applauds*
THIS.
QoT #39,
I agree with you about what is just ‘accepted’ as ‘given’ rather than actively challenged. I’ve re-read my post and realized I was a tad irritable and that’s been reflected in the way I’ve responded. I didn’t intend to be so forthright, and apologize if I’ve made you feel defensive.
I will just say that in my view there is a difference between comments made in good faith, based on either personal experience or those close to you, and those made in an offhand or casual manner which are simply thoughtless and result in harm or offense. I read BH’s reply at Pollytics as the former, and my irritation stemmed from wondering how she might feel if she read this thread (Possum linked to it, so it was likely she could).
This has descended into silliness quickly.
Skud, I wasnt talking about Hoydon – I was talking about any Australian female political bloggers that I didnt know about and asking for them to drop a link in if they wanted wider exposure to my particular readership which is a little different than most blogs.
Pharoah, thanks for that. The rest of post was trying to deal with that very same thing – it would have been nice if you’d taken the rest of the post into context.
Since this has gone entropic, I’ll cut to the chase -all of this basically stems from me asking a particular question and others declaring that “It’s the wrong question!!”
To which all I can say is – wrong to who, you?
Then ask your own damn question! 😀 … as the saying goes.And that’s meant light heartedly before anyone else goes native.
I honestly appreciate what some have said here, and some of the answers have been really insightful, particularly about the comments side of female participation on the orthodox capital P political blogs, as well as showing me the width of female political blogging in Australia – thanks to those that took the time.
I’ve outspent my welcome Tigtog, so I’ll leave in peace. You’re spot on, my framing was absolutely terrible! Speaking to two separate audiences with two very different understandings of politics is pretty difficult. I’ll live and learn for next time.
Thanks again everyone.
OK, let’s go back to the beginning. Now that you’ve redefined “political blogs” down to this extraordinarily limited and rather politically sterile idea, I’d like you to demonstrate your proposition’s truth value. Now that you’ve had a few pointers to a variety of blogs, supplemented by the Down Under Feminists Carnival and all their blogrolls, have you considered doing the per capita stats? Of the American blogs you’ve mentioned, I’m not convinced that any would qualify at all.
As an aside, my ‘saviour complex’ snark was not about your original post, but about you’re “I’m shocked – SHOCKED!” response here. Take it or leave it, but I’d appreciate a response to my paragraph one.
I’d also really, really like to know the answer to “how many blogs by women do you regularly read?” If you’re setting yourself up as an authority on what women’s blogs are not, it would be useful to show that you know what women’s blogs are.
Skud:
You’re offering Hoyden About Town traffic? How gracious of you.
*high five*
I looked around and didn’t notice anyone mentioning it… but is Kate Lundy not a political blogger? http://www.katelundy.com.au/category/blog/
Pharoah, thanks for that. The rest of post was trying to deal with that very same thing – it would have been nice if you’d taken the rest of the post into context.
What are you talking about here? My point about you being presumptuous or my point about you ignoring Lauredhel?
Also, it’s Pharaoh, not Pharoah. As in the god-rulers of Ancient Egypt.
Since this has gone entropic, I’ll cut to the chase -all of this basically stems from me asking a particular question and others declaring that “It’s the wrong question!!”
To which all I can say is – wrong to who, you?
Then ask your own damn question! 😀 … as the saying goes.
The problem is that you keep redefining what the question is. You say “Where are all the female political bloggers?” and we say “Over here!” and you say “No, actually I meant…”
Quit moving the goalposts.
And that’s meant light heartedly before anyone else goes native.
What do you mean by “goes native”? That’s sounding dangerously racist.
Lauredhel, I owe you a post since you probably wrote your last reply before I left.
You said:
“OK, let’s go back to the beginning. Now that you’ve redefined “political blogs” down to this extraordinarily limited and rather politically sterile idea, I’d like you to demonstrate your proposition’s truth value. Now that you’ve had a few pointers to a variety of blogs, supplemented by the Down Under Feminists Carnival and all their blogrolls, have you considered doing the per capita stats? Of the American blogs you’ve mentioned, I’m not convinced that any would qualify at all.”
Please, I havent redefined political blogs, I asked about blogs that cover that particular spectrum.
Because I’m honestly interested in why Oz female bloggers seem to cover nearly every possible place on the spectrum in relatively large numbers except the one which deals with the same political issues, daily, that the MSM deals with.
Let me ask it slightly differently in a way that will hopefully will nail the angle I’m coming from here – Where is the blogging equivalent of Laura Tingle? Or Lenore Taylor? Or Adele Ferguson?
That’s the question I’m trying to get at.
I’m not saying that other forms of political blogging are bad! Far from it – what I’m getting at is that not having Oz female bloggers of that equivalent is a pretty… no, it’s an extraordinarily unusual thing compared to other English speaking countries.
Am I asking the wrong question? I dont know – I think asking where an Australian blogging equivalent to our best female political analysts and journalists like Laura Tingle or Lenore Taylor or Adele Ferguson is pretty important. Not only because it’s something that we don’t have – independent female voices *competing* daily with the MSM on matters that cover the largest possible majority of the population – but that it’s something that Australia would be a better place with.Especially in terms of independent female voices speaking to power – because if Australia had successful female voices in that particular blogging space, they most certainly would be speaking to power – and *THAT* would be a GOOD THING by any yardstick.
Is that a little clearer on what I’m trying to get at?
The difficulty here for me is trying to explain exactly what I mean because this is an audience on this blog with an entirely different understanding and definitions and experience to politics than I have and most of my blog readership. Over on my blog, the original question was taken as it was meant, yet here it’s been a rough ride to try and explain it. It’s not shifting the goalposts as someone above alleged, it’s trying to explain precisely what I mean.
Just to add, there’s also a reason why I asked on my site for links, because if these bloggers exist – I don’t know about them (and if I dont, neither will a lot others), hence the exposure part, and leveraging my readership demographics to assist them getting a higher profile with a party political and insider audience.
Holy shit, I didn’t see that the first time around. Possum, that’s completely unacceptable here.
Possum, I assume you’re going to apologise, when you get back. After that, one more question:
Who are the male independent blogger “equivalents” of these women? And what are their business models?
And, yet again, since you still haven’t answered it and it was a key part of your original post, who are the female bloggers in America and elsewhere who you would consider fit your criteria? You’ve mentioned Pandagon and Wonkette. Pandagon wouldn’t remotely qualify by the criteria you’ve defined here, and personally I don’t believe Wonkette would either.
Sorry – your place, your rules – my mistake. No offence meant.
Saying “my mistake” offers no acknowledgement that it’s a gratuitously racist “turn of phrase” that you employed, either. It’s not just “our rules” – what else can the phrase mean but a derogatory slur against indigenous peoples? Perhaps it’s simply a phrase that you inherited from your youth that you’ve never even thought about, but how about thinking about it now?
Was this:
*Sorry – your place, your rules – my mistake. No offence meant.*
your *apology* for dropping the phrase ‘going native’ in a discussion of progressive political blogging in Australia? I just need to check that.
PC also said, “This has descended into silliness quickly.”
As a lurker from the US, I haven’t seen any descent into silliness here. I’ve seen women addressing PC’s arguments point by point without making any personal remarks.
I apologise again if I offended anyone.
Tigtog, I’ve thought about it enough to remember joking about it with an indigenous law lecturer not a month ago when he asked if that’s what I was doing when going through some issues of defo protection with him over an article I was thinking of publishing on Andrew Bolt.
I’m sure my indigenous rello’s will be remarkably amused at my blatent racism.
Not everyone has the same conceptualisation of language that is the norm here in this particular community.Maybe some of us have lived experiences a little differently to your own where that remark isnt actually seen as having any nasty undertones by those that you believe it would offend, but is just a turn of phrase – albeit one with a tawdry colonialist history for those that actually care of its origins.
One thing has become clear today – I have a very different set of lived experiences to many here. I think I’ve just about managed to offend all and sundry reading this – while I was walking on eggshells!
Yet the things I have said here today wouldn’t have caused the slightest offense among my peers, including powerful women and indigenous leaders. That I know for sure, because I just asked some of them.
Again, I completely apologise for any offence I may have caused in this community.
I went into this looking to assist any female bloggers that wanted it – something this blog does most days – but we ended up clashing.
I donate significant quantites of my time and professional skill helping NGOs deal with indigenous disadvantage as I’m sure many of you do – but we end up clashing.
We clash over the fluff – while trying to achieve the same basic material outcomes.
The cultural distance has been nothing if not memorably vast. And with that I’ll leave – before anyone mentions religion and gives me the chance to accidentally offend an entirely new population!
Well that’s it Tigtog – I wanted to ensure that I had not misinterpreted, that perhaps Possum was referring to some OTHER part of the conversation, since surely he could not be implying that objecting to the use of the phrase ‘going native’ as a stand in for what he’s implying is some kind of irrational uncivilised attack on his reasoned arguments…*surely* he couldn’t be implying that objections to that phrase were just some snarky reminder he’d failed a specific blog’s somewhat arbitrary ‘ettiquette’ rules? I mean he is An Australian Political Blogger so you’d think he’d know better than that.
Oh, you’ve got black friends, do you? Sorry, I was about to be all angry Koori lady on you, but I guess I’ve been told.
Carry on! I mean, it’s not like using a term in a debate on the internet whilst not Indigenous isn’t an entirely different thing from an Indigenous person using the same term jokingly in a one-on-one situation.
ticks “But I’ve got x friends/relatives!”
ticks “But I asked a woman and she wasn’t offended!”
ticks “And anyway this thing we’re arguing about (however much you think it matters to you) is trivial fluff!”
ticks “I apologise IF YOU (not THAT I)”
ticks “you’re so sensitive! I’m only trying to help!”….
Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiingo!
Do I get a prize can I have a goldfish in a bag can I can I?
Oh, Possum, dude, that flounce is _hilarious_. Serious degree of difficulty, yet you carried the lot off with a straight face.
Earlier you said that disability politics had never so much as crossed your radar in your entire life. We are a long, long, long, long way apart from trying to achieve the same basic material outcomes.
Better! You get a goldfish-in-a-bag SOAP!
Sweet jesus! Ok it *is* in fact what you meant. Great, you know a couple of people you say you didn’t offend. Bully for you. I’m so pleased that your short chat with a personal acquaintances has meant you feel free to deploy ‘going native’ in the sense you did in this country with this history. How liberating. Please feel free to describe what *you think* is the ‘colourful’ origin of the phrase since from my readings it’s referring to white fear of being contaminated by the ‘wildness/savageness/incivility’ of ‘the natives’ and that led to and was tied up in some pretty effing UGLY episodes in history – tawdry doesn’t quite cut it. I do so look forward to the other choice phrases you choose to deploy cos someone once told you it didn’t bother them. And you know what? Initially I didn’t have a problem with you wanting to ask questions. But you sure as hell don’t know how to make an apology and you have an uncanny knack of ‘saying’ you’re apologising while slipping in a disclaimer/snide remark on the sly. That you would use such a phrase given the history of this country just revolts me plain and simple. Don’t ‘apologise’ – you shouldn’t be ‘fauxpologising’ for ‘offending people’ you should be engaging with the fact you acted like an arse. Cos *that’s* the issue.
I’m betting it all-or nothing on his coming back for a reflounce. ENCORE!
Okay, now can I leave a comment about how Possum is obviously too sensitive to handle criticism? Cuz, wow. Wow.
I guess us wimmin will go back to talking about our silly things, and leave the Big Strong Men to discuss Politics With A P.
Someone wake me up when the revolution comes. My cranky-ass self is going to go back to trying to sort out what legislation is coming down the pipe that affects, oh, 25% of the population of Nova Scotia (the ones that have disabilities). I wonder if that’s a big enough group to count as important.
And to prove I’m an apolitical fluffbrain girlyhead: Oooo! That’s really cool soap.
KITTIES!
Actually, if I may make an attempt to turn this thread back to something actually important, rather than wasting our time on oversensitive men and their inability to deal with criticism (aka “~lolsensitive~”), what do y’all think about federal and state/provincial politics in terms of changing anything.
After being told I was “off message” for the left-wing party here in Canada for holding up a “make poverty history” sign, and Don was told he had to “look disabled” if he wasn’t going to stand up and cheer for the leader of said party, we both basically gave up on Federal politics for affecting change anywhere. Maybe I’m just a bitter bitter
communistleftist, but I really don’t see politicians doing much except moving about the hot air. But I’m wondering what y’all think about such things, and if you find federal and state/provincial politicians to be at all useful.I’m not sure if this thread proves that women are definitely not put off by robust internet stoushes, or that hypocrisy isn’t cool.
Both, I think.
Pile-ons? Not cool. Clearly Possum is a bit clueless about some basics of feminism and I cringed a little at his invoking of his black friend. But he’s not the enemy and this gloating is no more edifying coming from feminists as when it comes from the blokes who’ve done it to you.
Anna Winter, I’m not sure exactly where you’re seeing gloating?
Surely not in the posting of some images – I see that as very obviously intended to defuse the stoushiness by giving people a moment’s smile.
@Anna Winter, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I assumed that Possum was coming over here to discuss this in good faith. I assumed he’d engage with the comments here and answer them, instead of saying “Well, what I meant was…” every time someone disagreed with him.
Yes, basically everyone here disagreed with him, because he decided that nothing we were saying was political was actually political as he defined it. And instead of asking questions to learn more about that, he kept basically arguing “but that’s not what Politics is!”
I’m not sure how calling him on that behaviour, and then refusing to make it okay for him to be dismissive, is a pile on, but I don’t hang out in the same spaces you do so I may have a different definition of it than you do. (Not a better one, just a different one, so I may be putting my foot in my mouth.)
For me, being told that disability legislation isn’t, you know, politics is a bit upsetting, especially if we’re defining politics narrowly as “talking about legislation”.
Tigtog, I’m using terms like “lolsensitive” with bonus ~ around it, which is really childish and petty. “ha ha ha, we scared off the menz” is, I think, a valid reading of my comments.
Anna Winter may be thinking of something else, though.
Perhaps that was it, Anna. While I too appreciate the irony in the context of all those comments over at LP about how women don’t do “playfight” and cringe at stoushiness, I guess nyah-nyah equivalents are not particularly edifying.
Not sure that they’re actually hypocritical though.
>>Pile-ons? Not cool. Clearly Possum is a bit clueless about some basics of feminism and I cringed a little at his invoking of his black friend. But he’s not the enemy and this gloating is no more edifying coming from feminists as when it comes from the blokes who’ve done it to you.<<
No, blatant and unapologetic use of racist slurs is not cool. Personally I’m encouraged by several people speaking up to say so… rather than reading it as a “pile on”, which is rather minimising of what it’s in response to, I read it as evidence of WHY this is a blog I feel safe and supported on, unlike much of the Australian internet where anti-Indigenous sentiment is barely punished or sometimes even acknowledged.
I don’t know about all of you, but I was brought to tears by some of Possum’s comments, and I know many others were upset by them. The comment that finally tipped me over the edge was
Sorry – your place, your rules – my mistake. No offence meant.
This complete refusal to recognise why racial slurs are Not Ok just tops it, really.
Also, you have black rellies? Great. So do I! It doesn’t give me a free pass to be racist!
So in an attempt to cheer up myself and anyone else similarly hurt by these comments, have a lolcat I made for such events. (Backstory: LM was upset and I wanted to cheer Him up)
moar funny pictures
“why don’t women (proportionally the unbalance is weird) subscribe to crikey?”
Who has the time and energy to engage with bloke-style blogging and adversarial commenting?
And they want you to pay for that privilege.
hexy: Agreed.
pharaoh_katt:
That’s an adorable lolcat, thank you. 🙂
This was an upsetting conversation for me too, which is why I don’t feel bad about mocking and/or gloating. It’s a survival tactic, you know?
This conversation was upsetting even before the “going native” phrase that jumped the shark. While it’s admirable that he was willing to engage over here at all, he was almost totally on the defensive rather than attempting to explore and evaluate the arguments. And afterwards? I’m dismayed not only by the “my black friend” defence but also that a political blogger used a formulaic ”if I offended anyone” non-pology without any apparent trace of irony.
There was no IF about it, people had told him that they WERE offended, the proper way to apologise is to acknowledge that the act IS offensive rather than frame it as a conditional. Given that this and other feminist blogs routinely excoriate pollies and public figures for non-pologies using conditional formulations, it would be hypocritical NOT to call Possum out on it.
P.S. I have, in the distant past, been guilty of parallel situations making jokes with a punchline about “wogs” as a WASP Australian, that I thought were fine because I had best mates whose families came from the Mediterranean and I was totally being ironic and non-racist. I now know that I offended someone’s family terribly as a result, and they never said anything but I know that family could never really like or trust me afterwards, even though my friends who knew me did understand that I was trying to be supportively satirical about racist WASPs and had simply “misjudged the audience”.
It was a mortifying realisation about how just being mates with a marginalised group who use slurs about their group ironically amongst themselves doesn’t mean that it works when I as a member of the dominant hegemony try and use the exact same words in the exact same way. Without the context of that marginalisation directed against me personally, it’s just appropriation and it’s arrogant, inconsiderate of both my mates and others in the group whom I don’t know personally, and a glaring example of unexamined privilege.
Wow Anna. I watched as you told Wildly Parenthetical that perhaps she just was not used to the ‘testing and refining’ of ideas – that what she experienced as hostility dismissal and a refusal to engage – not just with her ideas but with people speaking from the position of people with disabilities on the Christian Rossiter thread – were respectful clarification and dialogue. But now that PC is here any testing and clarifying of *his* ideas is a vicious gang bashing? I’m not sure what the thread proves, but I’m pretty sure your comment re hypocrisy is kinda unintentionally funny.
And at the point of using ‘going native’? I would HOPE that there would be uproar.
Possum if you are still reading, this is the type of crap I’m talking about – comment 35 from Helen’s post on LP about why we are in Afghanistan
Helen has already dealt with this (I’m assuming male) commentator, but the fact is she shouldn’t have to. Were this written by Mark, or Brian or one of the numerous male posters on LP I doubt this comment would have been written like this. This is what I mean when I say that identifiable female commentators and posters have to prove their bona fides.
I just saw that Mindy. The condescension and contempt – appallingly routine practice when someone dares to centre women’s oppression.
Ok I just spent the last hour going back over the thread looking for the pile ons:
See the thread here used the questions elsewhere as a starting point and it was about the invisibility of women’s political blogging.
It starts with general comments re women being disappeared etc. PC wades in at 7 to say even when we define politics as widely as possible it’s still heavily weighted to men (I’d like to see stats on that actually – not snark, just interest).
Conversation continues as previously. There was the issue of BH’s comment being misread as coming from a guy interspersed with general discussion of politics. Rachel corrects this.
Not til 18 does PK point out a couple of her issues with PC. At 20 Anna argues the definition of politics and turns it around to ask ‘Where are the men writing about the issues that matter to me’.
Helen apologises for the misunderstanding re BH. WP discusses the dismissive tone over at LP as being a major issue in women’s participation and the political action of challenging the centre.
At 20 PC jumps back on to take on the two comments who directly referred to him. Gets all matyr like about the language of ‘women/female’, doesn’t ask questions to clarify what people mean, just assumes that he is right. Further more misreads/doesn’t properly read WPs comment and is wounded that she has that reading of his question – except she quite clearly *doesn’t* – her comment was specifically about LP threads and political stances, and not at all anything to do with PC OR his question.
PC redefines his question and asserts that people are assuming the worst motives despite only 2 comments to date directly addressing him/his words at all.
Anna tries to make a point: why are you not reading about these issues: they’re political. That’s what I read and you’re asking why I’m not reading/writing about what you’re interested in/see as political?
PC back again: knows nothing *about* disability (no mention of a plan to learn). Concern is that women aren’t focussing on MSM issues, and why that is.
L asks PC to delineate the issues and perhaps reflect on why they might not be covered for himself.
PC pretty much says he doesn’t know/learn b/c his life hasn’t taken him ‘down that road’
Says that the ‘issues’ L asked him to clarify come to one issue: who controls the power and what they’re doing with it. (That’s what he’d asked why women aren’t writing about remember)
Skud says if it fills the paper that’s enough reason to write about other issues. Points out that disability will affect us all at some point and that’s enough incentive to learn about/care about it.
43 PK giggling at the accidental use of ‘that’ in trying not to be offensive with female/woman stuff. Also takes issue with the traffic stuff. Points out that some women may not want the traffic. (I know I don’t the only commenter I picked up from Crikey was a pain in the arse). Argues women aren’t necessarily failing to be *heard* so much as to be heard by PC.
46 PC dismisses Skud and takes on PK – fainting couch moment over the traffic issue.
47 (someone – sorry didn’t write down your inititals) challenges PC as to what’s on *his* radar.
48 PC back to say he didn’t define politics at all (?) and that his concern is few women are focussing on the same issues as the MSM
49 Anna points out that he did, in actual fact, define politics.
50 L points out that the topics Anna raised *were* in MSM (so the point that women aren’t writing about the same issues as the MSM doesn’t actually stand up since the MSM covered it as did women who blog politics). Suggests he start actually listening to what women are saying here and snarks that perhaps he should drop the saviour complex (ie/ the offering of the traffic to enable women to ‘speak to power’ amongst other things)
51 Tigtog steps in to say PC is attempting to respond to many ppl and we should try to keep it brief and concise and remember to distance PC from threads atmosphere at LP and Crikey (which I actually think everyone had done an admirable job at doing)
52 L reminds PC that in fact many women ARE writing on his previously stated ‘ultimate issue’ of who’s in power and what they’re doing with it (remember he offered this as the definition of the issues he wasn’t seeing women blogging on)
54 Misses L’s point that women are covering it, gets upset by apparent accusations. Explains slowly and carefully how politics works and that issues covered in MSM are those that affect the most ppl and asks why women aren’t writing as much about those issues.
55 Tigtog – we’re covering other issues
57 PC says he never said that women don’t blog on the ultimate question. Except that’s what he said around comment 40
Anna points out that *women* are the largest group in society and by and large the MSM does not in fact cover issues which affect them.
Skud points out traffic stats
PK tries to point out that Anna (who had been dismissed with a yeah…and) was attempting to engage with PC on one of his points
PC gets back on to say ‘This has decended into silliness quickly (in fact we’re 6o plus comments in and the silliness I can see is PCs continual refusal to listen or engage or realise not every comment is about *him* particularly those that explicitly state they’re about other things). Further says if it’s the wrong question ‘ask your own damned question (uses a smily face – all better. So when you ask a question we’re not allowed to have opinions in our own spaces?) then drops the ‘goes native’ bomb.
From there I’m not even catalouging it cos that shit deserves everything it gets and more.
@FP
You’re quite right, everybody had been doing an admirable job of that. I was attempting to pre-empt the possibility of things getting more heated as more people joined the discussion, but I should have acknowledged that everyone had been doing that well so far already.
My point being it’s hardly the knives-out, bitch-arsed stacks on you make it out to be Anna Winter.
Which would be why I never said “knives-out, bitch-arsed stacks on” or gang bashing or whatever other hyperbole you would to use.
Are you accusing me of hypocrisy because of how when WP bowed out of the Rossiter thread we all laughed and called it a flounce and said that she was scared? Wev.
That’s the second time in two days that you’ve taken the most crazy and stupid reading of my argument to help prove your point, fuckpoliteness. So sadly while I really enjoy your blog I won’t be engaging with you ever again. Because this take-the-worst-possible-reading and point and laugh and accuse people of terrible motives hurts just as much (more, actually) when it’s done by supposed sisters in feminism as when the misogynist trolls do it.
I think Anna makes a very good point here, FP. I don’t see how paraphrasing her comments with words so entirely different from what she actually used is helpful in any way.
Sure. Please consider my statement revised. Let me rephrase: what I should have said was “it was hardly a pile on and hence hardly something that should lead us all to be chastised as hypocrites”.
And this: let this stand revised as:
Wow Anna. I watched as you told Wildly Parenthetical that perhaps she just was not used to the ‘testing and refining’ of ideas – that what she experienced as hostility dismissal and a refusal to engage – not just with her ideas but with people speaking from the position of people with disabilities on the Christian Rossiter thread – were respectful clarification and dialogue. But now that PC is here any testing and clarifying of *his* ideas is a pile on that invalidates women’s lived experiences of spaces like LP being unsafe? I’m not sure what the thread proves, but I’m pretty sure your comment re hypocrisy is kinda unintentionally funny.
No, I said I understood why she didn’t feel up to having that particular idea tested and refined, but explained why I still found the thread useful and important. In the same way that I didn’t say that feminists could never have stopped slavery but rather used it as an analogy for how someone still has to talk to people whose ideas we find troubling or even offensive.
Possum is a psephologist who displayed a large amount of cluelessness about feminism and the rules of grammar. But he was arguing in good faith and I’ve never seen him laugh at someone who displayed cluelessness about margins of error.
I’m suggesting that it’s hypocrisy to condemn this style of fighting in others, but yet employ the very same tactics when it suits. It doesn’t actually lessen the charge just because you think I’m one too.
Anna Winter, I think there’s a difference between someone not understanding math, and someone not understanding that my experience is valid and important.
I don’t think the problem was that Possum is clueless about feminism. I think Possum was refusing to accept that other people have different experiences than he does, and that those experiences are just as valid as his own. I really am quite irritated that “legislation” apparently means “legislation that is about certain things I think are important”, because that wasn’t what he said, just what he meant. (And, as I think I made clear, I only follow legislation I think is important, so I couldn’t have faulted him for that argument. It just isn’t the one he made.)
Of course, I’m very fed up in general that I continue to need argue that disability-related legislation is important. Having someone dismiss one of the most important things I blog about as not being something he ever thought about (and I read his comment as “nor will I, because it’s not part of my life”, as opposed to “I’ve been really ignorant of this, I will try to do better”), which coloured rather strongly how I chose to react to his final statements here. I don’t think I owe kindness or consideration to someone who thinks that legislation about the lives of 25% of the people in my province isn’t important or relevant to Politics.
I may, however, be reading a lot more into your comment than is there. I’m not as calm about this as I’d like to be, all things considered.
Ok. I needed to step away from the computer. What I think is bothering me is feeling like PC hasn’t really listened to what is being said. I find it hard to see someone being confronted with some serious questions only to evade those, go off on tangents and be a shifting target.
With regards to yourself I also felt like you were not listening to what was really being said. I should take a deep breath here and I will apologise in that I think in between a great lack of sleep/far too much reading of family law and frustration with the discussions of this topic I was getting a little too fired up and overstating what could have been stated more productively. And yes, I suppose that is hypocritical.
What I would like to see engaged with is that spaces like some LP threads are not merely a little rude/discomforting – it’s that it claims to be a progressive space and yet somehow the fact that people are saying “I do not feel safe speaking my experience here” is not truly being taken on board (in my experience) as an issue to be worked on, rather the problem stays located with the individual and their feelings rather than with the space.
It is true that when I don’t feel like I’m going to be listened to I will go away and use sarcasm and hyperbole to vent.
What I am really condemning in others is a lack of reflexivity when it comes to privilege, and to a kind of personal nastiness rather than engaging with the argument.
I was guilty of the second in snarking yesterday. If you are interested in discussing the points at which I felt conversation was becoming impossible I will do my best to engage rather than be a smart arse. And you are right in that it’s not a nice thing to do.
The only thing I can say is (and this is more in relation to the style I use to have a go at de Brito etc rather than at you) that I do shout back at a world that I see as refusing to see some kinds of oppression for what they are. I should not have been so quick to lump you into that sort of category and yet I did feel that the way in which you phrased things to WP meant that implications and insinuations were flying around quicker than they could be addressed. So I took the lazy way out and got snarky.
Each of the things I said though has a more reasonable way of saying it. I do not think that the end to slavery came about only through the actions of those who put up with the status quo/put personal feelings aside – personal feelings are important and good motivators and I think that the end to slavery was far too complex to be ascribed only to the work of those who learned to ‘play the game’.
I don’t think it is sufficient for a progressive space to say ‘well some didn’t find it a safe space but on the whole I found it respectful’ – I think *who* is saying they don’t find it safe should be listened to. In the Rossiter thread it was pwd and cultural theorists whose academic experience and activism has been in the areas of disbility/constructions of the body and its effects. If *those* people do not feel safe to continue to debate then there is a problem. Because the fact that TAB and those with less personal investment/or the exceptions who are directly affected and *don’t* feel threatened feel safe and think it’s respectful does not hold equal weight.
I do find it problematic that you can cast WP’s withdrawal as being scared and laughing and I am irritated when I feel that you haven’t really engaged with what WP and others were saying in this thread that you then come on and say it’s a ‘pile on’ and that this either means we’re good at stoushing or hypocrites. I do think that in a few of your comments you were quite rude whether intentionally or not and my response was to be directly and loudly rude in response to what I saw as covert and ‘stealthy’ rudeness.
I do not in fact wish to be someone who runs amok hurting people. I guess my strategy has been to engage in good faith where I feel that’s what the other person is doing – and where I feel they’re not to open fire (part of that is the refusal to bow to the gendered pressure to ‘be nice’ in disagreement once it’s been made clear that the other is not interested in listening or engaging). I do in fact think there’s a difference (generally speaking) in this tactic and in a space not making room and safe room for the lived experiences of those dealing with various oppressions. The one caveat there is if I go off half cocked I’m being an arsehole. But politically I think that where I am not jumping in too quickly there is a vast difference.
So that’s my story.
I’m not pleading for you to engage with me/continue reading my blog. I didn’t feel that you had ever engaged with me before. But I do like to think that when confronted I can take a step back, see how my behaviour has affected others and separate out what my *actual* issues are and the hurtfulness it’s caused. So I do apologise if what I have said has affected or upset you.
The one thing I would say here is that it would be great if we could expect that large blog spaces could also be expected to pull back when confronted and have a think through their own behaviour.
And with that I need to go do some long overdue study.
Nay I do apologise not ‘if what I have said has affected or upset you’ but for being aggressive and rude. My behaviour? I will own it.
Tigtog, you are the Paganini of moderators.
I just deleted a really long comment, but it’s too long and I don’t think it will make a difference. In a thread about a man with quadriplegia who wants to die it’s useful and important to hear the experience of other PWD. But that isn’t the same as letting their ideas and arguments stand unchallenged because of their experiences. If you think it does then you and I are never going to agree. Because that’s all that happened in the LP threads. No-one was abused or ridiculed or ignored. Everyone was, however, expected to back up their arguments, whether the issue was close to them or not.
But I do want to clear up that I didn’t say that WP ran scared or anything like that. My entire point was that *I didn’t say that*. I respected her right to bow out of the argument unlike what happened here when PC tried to bow out a couple of times and kept getting responded to. Then when he finally did there was gloating.
Use as much snark as you like. I’m not objecting to your tone. Just stop working from the worst reading of my comments and work with the best one whether you think that’s what I really meant or not. It’s the principle of charity.
Link was broken.
I don’t believe that I did work from a ‘bad reading’ of your comments. I believe I exaggerated with sarcasm and hyperbole to point out that I had a problem with them so that I’ll apologise for.
But I do believe that on this very thread you have failed to really listen and engage with what is being said to you in response to your points, and that your reading of what is happening here wrt PC’s treatment has been uncharitable. So the snarky way I pointed that out I’ll apologise for. But as for my readings of your comments and my lack of charity, I guess I’ll have to live with that.
So far as not saying WP ran scared I guess I must have misunderstood what you meant a few comments ago when you said ‘wevs’ to the LP thread saying WP left cos she was scared and laughed.
More than happy to apologise for tone/misunderstandings.
Not going to apologise for having a problem with your behaviour in not listening/not engaging/casting disagreements as pile ons/not extending to others the same charity you want me to extend. I’m actually a-ok with us never agreeing and I don’t feel bound by the fact that there’s a name for an approach to reading other people’s comments to actually putting to one side the fact that the comments in question don’t engage/dismiss points of view.
But after I’ve spent half my morning neglecting the studies I need to finish to have some time with my son tomorrow in order to really try to honestly engage with you I find your response somewhat lacking and obnoxious.
I think BH’s theory that we just don’t have time to engage in this stuff, has been blown out of the water now.
@Linda, channelling my fourteen-year-old self: OOOOOOOOOOOH, SNAP.
Hi all. I’m wondering – am I to take it that I’m being quoted above as a bad example for this discussion to bounce off? Just curious – it’s not entirely clear.
@ Jason, maybe just missing the point a little? It’s not snark we object to – you may have noticed that when the situation calls for it we do a good line in snark ourselves. It’s the being asked to prove ourselves, ignored, belittled, even threatened in some cases that makes us stay away from “macho” blogs. Also, what you consider political and what women bloggers consider political may be vastly different things as I think Possum now realises.
Jason: Do you mean in the original post? It was intended as a discussion prompt, not summary judgement.
Well, that’s the thing, Mindy. The quote above leaves off the second half of my original comment:
Not perfectly worded, but I’ve qualified both suggestions (which is all they were ever intended to be).
Does that create a slightly different impression of what I might have been driving at?
Yes, Lauredhel, in the original post. Apologies – it’s just slightly alarming to come across oneself quoted at the top of a long thread and not know what the intention was – thanks for clearing that up.
Absolutely Jason, and I’m guilty of not actually reading the thread it was written on. Please accept my apology.
No worries, Jason. The “they don’t like snark” trope is a particularly common one in this recurring discussion, and it wasn’t intended to single you out as a person at all. I think it’s unfair to pull out quotes and strip attribution, so your name is there, along with a link to the original so people can see everything that was said and make up their own minds.
Yeah for what it’s worth I liked that you hazarded that point Jason. I thought it was getting close to what women had said previously and continue to say. I think Mindy’s right in that it gets covered as snark when it’s more than that but I think your comment was positive and a good conversation starter.
Same here, Jason. I liked your comment. Gendered abuse, rape jokes etc. that are then often written off as harmless snark, is genuinely off-putting.
Okay, I’m going to take a deep breath and say what I need to say.
“What I would like to see engaged with is that spaces like some LP threads are not merely a little rude/discomforting – it’s that it claims to be a progressive space and yet somehow the fact that people are saying “I do not feel safe speaking my experience here” is not truly being taken on board (in my experience) as an issue to be worked on, rather the problem stays located with the individual and their feelings rather than with the space.”
Y’see I find this really interesting as a woman who’s a regular poster at LP. Personally, I find it a really safe space to comment in. OTOH, I find HAT a really unsafe space, because of the sort of piling on, mockery, sarcasm and the reading of comments of people in the most negative possible way, which is what I’ve seen from some commenters here. Even BH got jumped on for a very mild comment which was misread. It feels like the schoolyard where the uncool kid has been chased away. I think an attitude of aggression and bad faith was taken with PC from the get-go. I’ve seen it, and experienced it on other threads here as well. I don’t feel safe writing about my lived experience here, unless I know that it’s going to fit in with the rest of comments on a thread.
I think there’s an attitude from some commenters here that it’s okay to be as nasty to people, if you think their politics stink. That’s an attitude with which I basically disagree. And I don’t think being upset is a good reason to behave badly. My solution to that is not to say HAT needs to change to fit in with my desires. Why should it when it obviously works for a lot of people? My solution is simply to post here rarely and very warily. I’m breaking that rule here and I’m not looking forward to the response.
“I”n a thread about a man with quadriplegia who wants to die it’s useful and important to hear the experience of other PWD. But that isn’t the same as letting their ideas and arguments stand unchallenged because of their experiences. If you think it does then you and I are never going to agree. Because that’s all that happened in the LP threads. No-one was abused or ridiculed or ignored. Everyone was, however, expected to back up their arguments, whether the issue was close to them or not.”
This.
“Possum is a psephologist who displayed a large amount of cluelessness about feminism and the rules of grammar. But he was arguing in good faith and I’ve never seen him laugh at someone who displayed cluelessness about margins of error.”
And this.
That’s certainly not the kind of space that I want HaT to be, Fine. I also mostly don’t see it that way, although I know a few times other people have made a similar complaint. I do find that sometimes the misreadings go both ways – I know I’ve been accused of attacking women for their described actions when looking at my own words that prompted the accusation leaves me genuinely baffled as to where that attack is supposed to be.
This paragraph is directed at everybody, not you in particular and certainly not excluding me: perhaps everybody taking a bit more time to write very very clearly, avoiding rants and characterisations that are possibly defamatory (and thus placing the publisher (me) at risk of litigation), and also taking time to read each other a bit more carefully, could avoid some of this perception that HaT is not always a safe space for those who swim against the Hoydenish consensus.
In particular, if someone has already made the point that you wanted to make in a thread, for you to then add to their point is exactly what creates the sense of a pile-on. I’m sure it’s frustrating to have written a comment that you feel sums up your argument perfectly, and then realise that someone else beat you to the same point, but that’s the nature of rapid online interaction. Why not save it to a text editor instead for use in some future discussion along the same lines?
If you truly, honestly believe that dropping racist crap which you are offered a chance to apologise for and refuse is exactly the same as making a statistical error, we are not going to see eye to eye on this, ever.
I don’t know that there’s any way to make this any clearer than that.
Fine @33 – I agree.
If anything this has cemented my view that although we all identify as feminists how we go about our feminism is vastly different. That is why I find HAT a safe space and LP not so much at times.
The misreading and attribution has gone on on both sides and over multiple threads both here and on LP. It is regrettable, but it’s done now. Hopefully this can be the end of it.
And still no one who is working hard to centre the feelings of a white guy who dropped an unapologetic racist slur and had that behaviour called out (note that it was focused on the behaviour, I was playing the ball here) has so much as begun to acknowledge hexy’s multiple comments in this thread. This is not cool with me, as the initiator of this thread. I’m not going to be submissively silent about it, nor am I going to put up with being scolded for eschewing silence.
If you choose consciously to engage only with the white folks in a conversation about racism, frankly, you can go away. If it’s not conscious, you can fix it.
“If you choose consciously to engage only with the white folks in a conversation about racism, frankly, you can go away. If it’s not conscious, you can fix it.”
Lauredhel, I’m happy to go away if your exhortation is directed to me. As I said above , no reason for HaT to change its style of communication to satisfy me.
“and also taking time to read each other a bit more carefully, could avoid some of this perception that HaT is not always a safe space for those who swim against the Hoydenish consensus.”
I do appreciate and thank you for that tigtog, but I feel there’s some mixed messages going on.
Fine, I very much doubt that Lauredhel is directing her remarks only to you. But if you choose to see yourself included, let’s be scrupulous: you are being given a choice, not being kicked out willy nilly.
If you (and others) don’t choose to stop ignoring the solitary indigenous-identified person on this thread, the only one who has a personal stake in the effect of that casual colonialist racial slur that has been challenged, that is of course your choice, but don’t pretend that it’s anything else that you are being asked to do.
Sometimes people deserve to be challenged, even when they are generally goodwilled people, even when they are political allies. In fact, especially when they are political allies.
I assume that Lauredhel is referring to me and Anna Winter, because no-one else could be seen as defending PC. I maybe wrong about this, however.
FWIW, I agree that PC’s remark was racist and offensive and his non-apology was useless. I didn’t comment on that for the reasons you write about above: what’s the point of repeating what many other posters have said ? – it just creates a pile-one and doesn’t add anything to the conversation. There were many posters not ignoring Hexy’s post, after all. I also dislike the undertone of mocking glee that accompanied some of this.
Lauredhel also chooses to ignore what I actually wrote about, to criticise what I didn’t write about, which is interesting. It then creates, by inference the idea that I’m being racist (only engaging with the white folks), because I haven’t addressed that issue. I think that’s a case of one’s comment being read in the most negative way possible. I don’t see where I, or anyone else, has asked anyone to be silent either. What I’ve said is that I find the style of communication which some people use here unsafe – which was a response to FP’s comment about the differences between LP and HAT.
But I also feel I’ve said enough here, as I think that any ensuing stoush might be fairly pointless.
@Fine
That may well have been what you inferred, but it’s not the only reading. I read it as a “check your privilege” moment, not a “what a racist” moment.
I have no comment on the issue of what Possum Comitatus said. I do need to speak up to make it clear my experience of the atmosphere of this blog has been precisely stated by Fine in the long comment numbered 33, and earlier by Anna Winter when she said “Because this take-the-worst-possible-reading and point and laugh and accuse people of terrible motives hurts just as much (more, actually) when it’s done by supposed sisters in feminism as when the misogynist trolls do it.” I decided some time ago, after experiencing just one too many verbal attacks here, that it wasn’t good for my mental health to engage, so I “flounced off”, to use the local language, and have felt it was the right choice, if a sad one, because the style of engagement practiced and indeed encouraged here is totally incompatible with my feminist ideals and ethics.
Some of you might know that i research and teach in women’s literature and women’s studies; that doesn’t mean my opinions or ideals are better than anyone’s here but it does mean I have a lot of experience with facilitating feminist consciousness-raising conversations for people of all kinds and ways of thinking.
My experience, and my philosophy, is that no matter how wrong a student’s comment is (and last week I had a young woman say ‘Hitler wasn’t really that bad for Germany’) the demeaning belittling techniques of jeering and scorning and mockery and smart remarks is never deserved, and it never teaches them to think any different. For that to happen, you have to make a space where *everyone* is safe and held – vulnerable people, privileged people alike – and everyone can safely venture out of her or his comfort zone, and perhaps make very big mistakes, not without consequences, but without catastrophe. And that means not laughing at or misquoting or getting angry at people when they make mistakes. Basically, it means not fighting. I don’t know if verbal non-violent resistance can be successfully practiced in online communication but I think it’s kind of important to try.
I get that here you don’t see your role as being to educate or to help people with questions to educate themselves; but I don’t get how you reconcile the desire to subvert oppressive structures of domination with the way you treat people don’t agree with you here. As Anna said the most dismaying part of it all is that it’s often other feminists who are the butts.
For what it’s worth, Laura, I never saw your decision to leave as a flounce. A flounce is a particular style of signalling an exit, and it’s not a style that characterises your choice to leave. What I remember about our last round of engagement here is that I thought I was saying one thing, and you thought I was saying another thing entirely, and neither of us was able to persuade the other to a common view, and I’m sorry that it fell out the way that it did.
The term “flounce” does apply to certain other announcements of exit intentions, just not all. I’m not sure that it applies to Possum’s exit announcement in this thread either, to be scrupulously fair.
I’m trying to come up with an effective way of participating in this part of the conversation, without being inflammatory. Being that I’m, quite frankly, a very angry person and HaT is one of the very few places I feel I’m allowed to be angry, I’m not sure I’ll be very good at that last part.
One of the ways that I cope with the random abuse that’s heaped on myself and Don for being “inconvenient” to others is by snarky, black “humour” that I know really disturbs people who don’t see it coming, and really don’t see its source. I won’t bore you with anecdotes for now, but it’s not unusual or unique to HaT or anywhere else for people who are oppressed to deal with that through snarky black angry humour that alienates some people.
This is obviously not everyone’s cuppa, and not everyone finds it effective. I don’t buy into the tone argument, but I do know that alienating some people by mocking their ignorance will drive them away from my message.
Making it clear, I hope, that I don’t speak for HaT, but only for myself, I don’t care. There are lots of very kind, very understanding and accepting, very patient women with disabilities and their allies who can shoulder the burden of being kind and graceful under pressure. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the work and effort they put into it. I tried that route, and it didn’t accomplish anything that my family needed accomplished.
I embrace snarky angry humour because the alternative is I pull the blankets over my head and give up. This is not h0w everyone sees the world, and I wouldn’t want them to.
I have felt that Lauredhel and Tigtog have understood that same balance, even if I’m not certain they both embrace that way of coping. Having a space where I can be unapologetically angry that the bucket is full and people keep adding more of their ignorance and abuse of people with disabilities to it is an important part of remembering that my anger is justified, and that the treatment we have received – from the medical establishment, from the city of Halifax, from AirCanada, from the universities, from our politicians – is not acceptable.
In my personal life, if people are afraid to say something about disability in front of me because they think I may bite their head off for saying the wrong thing – good. Seriously. Because there is a finite amount of times I can put up with people treating my husband like he’s not a human being, and that limit was reached some time ago.
I generally like the way HaT is moderated, but really – of course I would. The sort of anger and glee that I think Fine, Anna Winter, and others are concerned about is part of who I am. I guess what the real question is whether or not that’s the sort of atmosphere that Tigtog and Lauredhel are okay with, not whether or not I am.
I think I may have somehow implied that HaT has to allow snarky comments or I shall leave and be angry elsewhere, which isn’t my intention. I can by snarky elsewhere, and quite often am. It’s just usually over tea, offline.
Anna, thanks for the clarification.
Sometimes I wonder whether part of the disconnect is at least as much to do with nerd-geekery as it is to do with feminism. My reading and online interaction history is geek-nerd first and feminist second, and I suspect that the geek history frames my style of engagement a little more than the feminist ideology does. Engaging with snark, and expecting others in the community to appreciate the artistry of the snark before they delve into the nitty gritty of the arguments that are embedded within the snark, has been part of my style online in particular since the mid-90s.
So, is this divide in argumentation styles more of a geek-nerd/non-geek-nerd divide than a feminist-of-particular-stripes divide? In that our feminism is so informed by our geek-nerd history that the geek-nerd style of interaction is our dominant mode?
If so, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t endeavour to reach beyond it, just that perhaps some of our interlocutor’s assumptions also need to move sideways a few steps while we engage in self-examination.
This paragraph is directed at everybody, not you in particular and certainly not excluding me: perhaps everybody taking a bit more time to write very very clearly, avoiding rants and characterisations that are possibly defamatory (and thus placing the publisher (me) at risk of litigation), and also taking time to read each other a bit more carefully, could avoid some of this perception that HaT is not always a safe space for those who swim against the Hoydenish consensus.
I won’t speak for anyone else, but I know my comments mocking PC’s use of language were out of line and unhelpful. For that, I apologise. I found his tone to be condescending and rude, and my natural response to that is anger, and I deal with anger by being snarky.
I think my reaction is probably a combination of “I’m fucking *angry*!” and the other blogs I frequent. I was introduced to blogging through the BDSM wars, and if you can’t be angry in that situation, you can’t survive. Everything just feels so intensly *personal* to me.
Thanks, Pharoah-Katt for the apology for that part of your behaviour which was unhelpful. I appreciate you taking the time to think about it.
* * *
I was going to divert to another matter raised in the course of this discussion thread, but I might start a new thread for that. This one’s getting long.
I’m a homebirth wingnut according to Crikey. I think I can skip reading shit like that without too much distress.
@Anna Winter (and Fine, to a degree, since you quoted this and agreed with it with no alteration)
Maybe I’m just doing this whole “worst possible reading” thing (and now I’m being snarky, I suppose), but this reads like a pretty major false dichotomy, right here. I don’t see where anyone’s said anything beyond the fact that perhaps it’s important to place a little more weight on the experiences of people who’s day to day lives are the subject of the discussion to hand precisely because these are their lives. Perhaps that doesn’t mesh well with some idea of valuing everyone’s voice equally, but I tend to find that presupposes a problematic version of ‘equally’ that ultimately ends up serving oppressive structures. To characterise that as asking for their ideas not to be challenged is a pretty uncharitable reading of the order you’re throwing accusations around here about, to be perfectly frank.
I also think it’s interesting (with no comment on intention) that you used the passive “hear” rather than the active “listen to” when referencing a thread where many PWD felt their experiences weren’t being listened to.
Anna@45 – it’s not about snark, but group dynamics and insider/outsider politics.
Linda, could you expand on your comment? I’m not understanding it.
Anna, both Fine and Allordinary2 have said more than I would dare to say here, on the subject. But I have expanded on it at my place. This part of Allordinary2@42 really resonates for me.
“…but I don’t get how you reconcile the desire to subvert oppressive structures of domination with the way you treat people don’t agree with you here.”
Linda, as far as I can tell our online relationship went south months ago after you accused me of holding one commentor above you in the blog’s hierarchy simply because I disagreed with your response to something written by that commentor. As far as I was concerned then and now, the following week it could easily have been me disagreeing with that commentor and agreeing with you on some other matter, but you chose to interpret it as some sort of avowal of the other commentor having a permanently higher status in the commentariat. I probably didn’t respond to that as well as I could have, because it seemed like such a blatantly incorrect evaluation of the situation that I was honestly gobsmacked.
You have made several similar accusations in the months since, and not surprisingly each time I’ve resented the accusation a little more. Sometimes a difference of opinion is just a difference of opinion, and to be told that my expression of my own opinions is misusing moderator privileges to reinforce some hierarchy seems like just another way of shutting my voice down, to be frank. It appears that only if I conform to your way of doing things will you then view me as not playing some sort of dominance game over you, which seems rather upside-down.
Because of your accusations I’ve come to deeply dislike interacting with you, especially since reading some of what you’ve written on your blog judging me as a hypocrite and bully, and there’s no doubt that this colours my responses to you, but from my side of this strife I see it as purely a clash of personalities. This is of course not to claim that I am in any way immune from reacting in unthinking ways that do reinforce patterns of dominance, just that I honestly don’t think that’s what I’m doing in my dealings with you.
Linda, if I understand your post correctly, you don’t like HaT, you don’t think it’s a feminist site, and you don’t like a lot of the commenters here.
I’m not sure what to say to that. Certainly I’ve felt similarly about other popular feminist sites, and wild ponies couldn’t drag me back to them. I didn’t like the culture anymore, didn’t feel welcome, and certainly have had many conversations with people about it. I know there’s nothing those sites could do now to make me think better of them.
I think I should bow out of this thread now, since I can’t think I’ll contribute anything of use to it.
http://www.blognow.com.au/lookingglassalice/165794/More_ways_to_shit_on_women_Part_47_-_laugh_at_violence_against_us_trigger_warning.html