Internet Activism Matters: An Update On Kickstarter and Ken Hoinsky – the authors of the petition to have the offensive “seduction guide” by Ken Hoinsky pulled from Kickstarter have spoken with him and he has pledged to write a book “that promotes consent, respect, and healthy relationships”, that he needed to “seriously evaluate every last word of my writing to make sure I wasn’t encouraging sexual assault in any way, shape, or form”, and that he’ll be working with anti-rape advocacy groups and experts to ensure that “the advice I am offering is free of any tinge of sexual assault or rape vibes”.

Are books like this still totally dumb? Yeah. But thanks to the petition I and 63,623 other people signed, the book will no longer promote sexual assault. The men who read this book will no longer receive the message that grabbing a woman’s hand and putting it on your penis without consent is okay. They will not read a book that tells them to “force” a woman to “rebuff” their “advances.”

So. $25,000 donated to RAINN by Kickstarter, a new Kickstarter policy banning “seduction guides,” and an apology from Hoinsky along with a commitment to work with anti-violence organizations while rewriting his book.

Not bad!

I don’t know how else to say this: Internet activism matters. The next time someone tries to give you shit for “just blogging” or “just signing petitions,” point them to this and dozens of other examples of small things adding up to make a big difference.

Of course, if you are able, you should do more than blog and sign petitions. But not everyone is able for various reasons, and there’s no need to devalue what for many people is the only way they can participate in activism. Further, there are some things that can only be accomplished through collective action. Where would you have held a protest against this book? Volunteering at a soup kitchen is important, but would it have convinced Hoinsky that his advice was harmful?

A strong movement is comprised of many different kinds of activists doing many different kinds of things. […]

If you devalue any piece of this puzzle in favor of the one you happen to hold, you’re ignoring the fact that there’s no concrete thing called Change that there’s only one definitive way to accomplish.

Read the whole thing.

Categories: ethics & philosophy, social justice, violence

Tags: activism/charity, online activism, rape culture