I’ve been reading some feminist blogs lately where the comments have been hijacked by guys, wondering why the usual commenters, women and men who are familiar with and supporters of feminism, were being so mean and/or impatient with them, when all they wanted to do was learn, or when they should just appreciate a man who *says* he’s supportive of women’s rights?
I came across that post late, so I didn’t bother commenting. What happened, though, was that I remembered my own frustration, ridiculous as it could be, when I’m yelled at, rather than politely directed elsewhere, when I make a comment in a blog about something that I’m not quite on par with the rest of the community about. I understand that the oppressed should not be expected to educate the privileged, but once you go there, you uncover so many other questions, most dramatic of which is: if the oppressed shouldn’t educate the privileged, and the privileged should educate themselves, then where do the privileged acquire their knowledge? If no one brings to their attention that something is wrong, then how should they be expected to know? And, are willing teachers betraying something innate? Do they have a lot of internalized racism/sexism/homophobia to work through? Are we basically just saying that the oppressed should never be expected to stand up and fight for their rights?
When it comes to the new-to-feminism crowd, I sympathize with the people who are genuinely trying to understand, but get ripped to shreds after unintentionally saying something that betrays their privilege and shows their ignorance of the issues being discussed in the post.
I thought, after that particular thread, that I’d hunt down the guy, Kyle something-or-other, and let him know that if he’s frustrated by today’s “blog feminist,” but is still interested in understanding feminism and being a good ally, or even be comfortable calling himself a feminist, that I’d be happy to respectfully answer his respectfully asked questions. Turned out he didn’t provide a link with his “user name” on the blog, so I didn’t know how to find him, but the general idea stuck.
I’d be happy to help educate potential supporters of women’s rights, whether male or female. I know the frustration of just being e-yelled at and insulted for merely asking a question, and not being completely immersed in the feminist jargon du jour, and just wishing that I could get my questions answered without being ripped a new one and deciding for a while that feminists were just obnoxious idiots instead of feeling like I needed to educate myself. Feeling frustrated that these people were so quick to assign themselves a particular place on whatever pedestal, and forget about anything else.
It’s worth it to help people who are genuinely interested and genuinely have good intentions. After I slowly came around through the influence of the feminist blogosphere, I started going to the library and frequenting the “women’s studies” section of the bookstore, and listening to more female musicians and reading more female authors. It’s opened my eyes to many more things, and it may not have if I hadn’t been obsessively reading anything that made me mad that year, and eventually just started to agree with the blog I only read for my own “anti-everything” blog fodder. Would the feminists of the world really miss me, had I not continued reading Feministe and eventually starting to learn what feminism was all about through other channels, and claimed the label for myself? Ultimately, no. But we could all certainly benefit from a whole bunch of people like me, men and women alike. It is a good thing, and a goal of any oppressed group of individuals, to have your oppressors fighting on your side. If not for them understanding, then any kind of equality either comes a lot more slowly, or not at all. It isn’t that difficult to understand, and it’s about time that modern feminists stop pretending that certain truths don’t exist, and just roll with it. Stop being stubborn, stop trying to prove something irrelevant, and just get with the picture. Don’t shrug off everyone that hasn’t had the privilege of paying for a few women’s studies classes, but form little he or she knows now, still wants to learn and doesn’t have the insider-knowledge required to have an intellectual conversation. Do what needs to be done, or who else will? We can’t wait for the MRA’s to figure it out on their own. We have to be willing to engage genuine people who have good intentions and want to learn, and we need to give them time to do so. Are we fighting, or are we complaining? If you don’t accept your responsibility to help your cause, even if that means just being nice on the internet once in a while, then you are just blowing hot air and wasting space.
Maybe I should make a new blog with this idea in mind?
I’m clearly not the expert on equality, oppression, and being a Good Ally and privileged person. But I promise not to be a dick if you’re not a troll, and you genuinely want to help and understand.
People who host and write blogs are in a unique position. You just might show up on someone’s search engine when they Google the topic you write about, hoping to learn. Do you want to look like a homicidal lunatic, or so you want to help your cause? You don’t live in a vacuum; rejoin the rest of civilization and try to remember to stop being such an ass hole.
And, for the record, if anyone actually reads and intends to comment on this blog post, I will just delete the fucking out-there nonsense troll BS. I won’t even humor that shit, so be warned. I’m actually warning not the trolls, but the other feminists who think that allowing trolls to get through and not delete them is good because it calls them out, instead of just deleting them, in order to respect the conversation and not allow derailing. That way, I save myself a few “How do we stop the derailing?!” posts every few months or so.
If I do start another blog, I’ll be sure to link to it here.
Sometimes, I write as though I actually have readers. Ha!
