Self-awareness
Well this is hilarious.
A friend pointed out a comment on a thread at Pharyngula discussing feminism.
It’s one thing to criticize an artist for racism or transphobia. It’s quite another for who knows how many people to create over 3 dozen blogs and use social media to target an individual without social, economic, or political power. That’s disproportionate to any offense she caused. This isn’t a case of thousands of people taking to Twitter to mock and excoriate someone like Pharmabro Martin Shrkeli. He is a public figure in a position of power with a lot of privilege and a distinct lack of empathy who’s actions could impact a great many people. Zamii is nothing like him. She doesn’t have his position, his influence, or his wealth. While she isn’t free from being criticized for racism or transphobia, the extent of the criticism against her was wildly out of proportionate to her actions. The people who bullied her went too far.
Huh.
There’s more.
There’s a line between legitimately criticizing someone and contributing to a campaign of bullying and/or harassment. I don’t have an easy answer on how to find that line, but as I mentioned above, one important thing to keep in mind is the person you’re criticizing. Are you adding your voice to a chorus of people lambasting Donald Trump on Twitter for his vile racist or misogynistic comments or are you adding your voice to a chorus of people coming down on an individual with a blog and a level of power that is not remotely comparable?
Why is that hilarious?
Because it’s Tony the Queer Shoop.
It must be SO tempting to comment “Apology accepted.” (or not accepted, whichever you feel is funnier)
Hahaha no not really. The temptation to talk to any of those people is pretty much stuck at zero.
Oh, yeah. I remember Tony.
Keep punchin’ up, Dude!
The irony is astounding. And no one there will see the close resemblance between the bullying done to the individual being discussed, and what they did to you. That gang at FTB have all of the introspective ability of gnats. How many blogs and comments were made to “critisize” you? Dozens.
I wonder if some transactivists will celebrate the fact that someone they’ve perceived to be a TERF almost killed herself. After all, wishing that “cis scum” would “just die” or kill themselves seems to be a common refrain from some in that movement.
The comment by the commenter “emergence” is a gem too. It’s like, “I know it’s awful that those people harassing Zamii drove her to consider suicide and she didn’t deserve it, but what’s really important is that it’s going to reflect poorly on ME!”
I see I wasn’t the only one that picked up on that, Jennifer. And without even a “yes but” after Caine’s mention of acting in an ethical fashion.
(Of course I’ll be getting another bout of harassment mail from hordelings as a result of being mentioned in said post, but I guess it’s just like the weather.)
You get MAIL from them?
Yeesh, I’ve been spared that.
I’ve christened them “FETAs”… Feminist Exclusive Trans Activists. It’s only fair.
At least “emergence” isn’t completely lacking all self awareness:
“I realize that it’s crass to shift focus from the victim to defending yourself, but …”
I get mail from them now that I’ve turned comments off on my blog because the passive-aggressive “disappointed” comments were choking my moderation bin.
FETAs– their arguments are cheesy.
Chris, have you been bludgeoning people with requests for safe spaces and freedom from oppression again? How terribly disappointing…
On a more serious note, I don’t claim to have a deep understanding of gender or why people do/do not identify with a particular gender. I’m not even certain that a particular individuals relationship with their gender is fixed throughout their life (I suspect strongly that it is not).
One thing that bugs me about many of the commentators at FTB who gave Ophelia such a shit time is that while most seem to reject any biological essentialism related to gender, they flip back and forth from ‘social construct’ to ‘innate identity’ as the argument or circumstances suit. If gender is identity, full stop, as was claimed during clusterfuckgate; and OB was wrong to want to have a more in depth discussion because society/culture/religious/biological interactions, then why swap to ‘gender is cultural when it suits them? Why aren’t we all having a meaningful discussion about gender right now?
The discussion about gender here at B&W in the last couple of months has been more informative and robust than anything I saw on the entire FTB network in the last 2 years.
Because they can claim to have worked it out for themselves without meddlesome Second-Wavers involved.
Fine I guess. But then why swap back to ‘gender is identity, full stop’ 5 minutes later?
Do you know that old saying about the goldfish in a bowl where the castle is a surprise every time?
[Note to H.J. Hornbeck: I suggest you alphabetize this one under “G” for “goldfish” rather than D for “Do”. HTH.]
:D
@ Chris Clarke:
Partner now wants to know why I almost knocked over my desk laughing so hard. But on a more serious note, does HJ Hornbeck (Hjornbeck?) still “monitor” you? Really?
You’re right! I was trying to put my finger on what was so damned inconsistent and confusing to me when i was trying to follow their line of thinking. You know that gut feeling one gets that something just isn’t right with the logic of a series of comments, but formulating a response would take far too much energy and mental power to parse out the unholy mess that you just say “Oh, fuck it!” and leave it behind? That’s how I felt while reading their comments. Thanks for pointing out the worst of their inconsistencies…. that’s what was gnawing at me.
I’m pretty sure that HJH, and others (mainly the blockbot crew), now monitor us all. I know for a fact they are/were monitiring facebook groups. Most of us have done some major fb blocking… but I’m sure that there are some who are still storifying, whatever they consider to be “terfy” comments, like crazy.
Hmm, I’ve been assuming they’ve all moved on…as reasonable people do. I see the problem with my arithmetic there.
I suspect that stalking a cis male like myself doesn’t provide HJ the frisson that stalking women might. But I suppose keeping track of ideologically errant men might be an amusing sideline.
Hrm… I’d been thinking of getting back into blogging in a bit… Once a few more ragged bits of life settle out…
But okay, I guess actually registering it as ideologicallyerrant.com would be kinda precious.
@Graculus, that’s a great term and should be used widely!
I am also adopting FETA. Thanks Graculus!
Chris / #11: So I’ll have to either compliment you on your reuse of a Ferdinand Feghoot story or remark on the parallel evolution of sf wordplay here…
I tried to write one for a freshman writing seminar years ago, hinging on something that ‘just goes to show you’. The only comment from the grad student TA was a big red question mark.