Ok I am tired, busy and well…essentially lazy (plus I have a headache, a truck-tonne of study to get to and my net access is being throttled), so I’m not running all over the internet for you right now with a little link here and a little link there.
But what started the whole thing was a question over at Crikey which evolved from ‘why don’t women subscribe to Crikey’ to ‘where are all the female political bloggers’.
This got up the noses of quite a few prolific political bloggers (who happen to be women) – unsurprisingly enough. Why hello, we’re here. It’s not that hard to track us down. Almost everyone knows about Hoyden About Town and they have this excellent blogroll, and…Ah right…you don’t mean us. You mean ‘big P political’ for which I take it you need to have a big P penis.*We’re* just discussing media, law, rape, issues with the medical profession, disability politics, invisibility, breastfeeding discrimination, conduct of politicians, live blogging elections, internet censorship, race politics, divisions in feminism, transphobia, homophobia, talk back radio, life/work/study/family/friends/leisure balances, and about a million other things.
I don’t actually object to exploring why women might not blog about certain kinds of topics so long as the many reasons why are canvassed. But the question at hand quickly changed again.
Leaving that part of the discussion to one side, the discussion became one of why women are not participating in the larger political blog spaces like Crikey and Larvatus Prodeo.
To be fair the conversation has not been all bad, some stuff that came up was that women are far more likely to be blogging about the substance of politics, politics in action, politics in how it affects life rather than the dryer more technical side of politics. Other people raised the factor of extra demands on women’s time (and reading family law this semester I’d say that’s a valid issue to discuss). Some of these things could stand to be explored longer…but you know it really didn’t take long for the inability to focus on the issue at hand to set in and then of course we had the pissed off pot shots at women.
Larvatus opened up their own thread and as if in illustration of exactly why women do not participate in these spaces as much as men discussions at both places explored variations on themes such as:
We run a tight ship, if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen
They’re women: baggage, amirite?
Well ladeeez I read your so-called blog: my goodness you have some anger! Didn’t anyone ever tell you that’s unladylike and discomforting to me? (actually that was over at the Crikey post)
Male privilege? What the fuck are these overly emotional morons on about? If they can’t stand being called hysterical shrew feminazi bitches then they’re obviously unused to our short and jocular conversational style
I can’t be arsed engaging with it for much longer than this, but it’s a beautiful illustration of some of the stuff Melissa McEwan was discussing in her post I linked to from my last post right?
That women say ‘Look I’m really uncomfortable with the way you conduct yourself’ and men fall all over themselves asserting that it’s you, it’s your fault, we ARE SO TOO progressive and inclusive communities and if women have too many ovary-related hormones, victim-mentality baggage and fragile-nervous system issues then they should GET OUT and that is SO not our problem.
Apart from the instances of outright aggression about the issue the general tone of smug superiority of condescending ‘Oh yes dear but I meant to be disparaging…did you only just pick that up?’, the tittering ‘Oh whacky feminists, they can never just integrate can they’ – basically the condescension and unwillingness to engage, and the dismissal of experiences not their own is just something that means I *cannot be bothered subjecting myself to that SHIT in order to bump up the numbers of women engaging in their ‘conversations’ (more monologues really)*
I would *far* rather spend my time discussing politics in spaces in which questions of inclusion/exclusion and the effects of policy are discussed in open and respectful ways. No that doesn’t mean I’m going to be welcoming MRA’s onto my site. It means I’d rather know that a guy being a smug shit slapping a woman in the face in a sideways manner to avoid moderation would GET MODERATED. Don’t pull that shit, don’t think we can’t see it for what it is. And *please* for the love of god don’t tell me you’re progressive if you can’t even listen to a feminist perspective without pissing all over it. If you have that much trouble with a feminist perspective and can be that offensive in response, I *really* don’t want to read your defensiveness over racism, homophobia, transphobia and disability politics because then I might *really* loathe you. (Oh a little shout out to Hannah’s Dad right now: HD your man parts are safe)
That. Right there. Is why I don’t bother with your spaces. Because you’re only too ready, nay, damned eager to jump all over and trample upstart-0y women who have experienced the world in ways that question your cocksure belief that the need for feminism is over, equality for all, click your heels, zippity-doo-dah.
That and I can hear more interesting discussions elsewhere – gasp! Sorry, some of the posts are quite good, but as far as conversation afterwards goes, well I don’t mean to shock you with the revelation that the political and philosophical universe doesn’t centre around the nattering of a couple of dozen overly privileged middle class uni graduates in white collar employment, but your discussions in threads is mediochre, your inability to focus on discomforting issues that might require you to examine your own privilege, your attempts at ‘wit’ and your self congratulatory, protecting the status quo smugness is off putting and tedious and on the whole your conversational ability really just doesn’t get me there you know?
So…don’t call me…um…I’ll call you. When you start working out on your inclusion issues k?
*applauds*
Just ran through the “politics” folder in my google reader. More female authors than male there.
The reason why I don’t blog about the form of the political system is because I have to do MORE than enough of that for university. Fatherfuckers.
I wonder how blogging about political parties policies, elections and the topic du jour, internet & gaming censorship ISN’T political blogging?
The other day, in a lecture, I noticed that the males were vastly outnumbered by females. And then I nearly cried because I realised after graduation the men in my class are twice as likely to ever receive any recognition for their work than the women.
How is it not even half past nine, and I am already this enraged?
What fucking pieces of runny, green shit.
FUCK yeah to all the above.
I’m not sure *who* the runny green pieces of shit are…but thank you for that vivid picture! I thought *I* deployed colourful turns of phrase.
Have you ever checked out the gender threads on Online Opinion? Definitely not for the faint-hearted feminist.
(Disclaimer: I’m not slagging the OLO forum itself, which I quite like.)
Nope. I avoid major sites where men are allowed to be as disrespectful as they please while simultaneously refusing to engage with the issues raised…so now I tend to avoid the major sites because five comments in and I’m holding my head and shouting ‘SERENITY NOW’.
And contrary to recent assertions (not from you – elsewhere) I can still test and refine my ideas without needing to subject myself to ritual crucifixion at the hands of those who refuse to check their privilege…it’s just that I do it in the midst of *respectful* dialogue where I am *allowed* to test my ideas *and* to test those of others *without* having them (and indeed my very person/intellect) be the subject of a dickswinging group attack.
And I would happily allow ideas to be tested and refined here, and engage in a dialogue and agree/disagree respectfully (I think I managed to disagree with you politely enough recently). What I won’t countenance is people thinking they can bring the dickswinging/silencing tactics onto my blogspace – YOU HAVE THE REST OF THE WORLD ppl. But essentially this argument is one that cannot be won with people who do not want to listen and who are intent on recasting and recasting the issues so they don’t have to engage with the problems.
Just want to reiterate this comment is a rant over the things I’ve read online in the last hour, NOT directed at you Marian!! Promise!
I think I love you…
Hehe…thanks Helen, I’ll take that!
Back atcha! This whole thing is both exhausting and tedious. And BilB’s response to you. OH SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD!!!
Hell yes.
Oh not if you listen to some. Basically we’re all ducking the very IMPORTANT work of convincing people and if it were left to people like us there would still be SLAVERY!! Also if some feminist women see unchecked privilege in discussions of disability as a problem, and others see it as respectful discussion then well there’s no consensus so it’s all about *feelings*. Ok. I’m being snarky now. But a steadfast refusal to engage with issues and especially issues of privilege WILL make me snarky
Well with thoughtful engagement such as this it’s really difficult to believe that women think their voices are not welcomed:
Irony: I do not think think it means what you think it means.
Listen up dipshit – she said Crikey is an unappealling way (for her) to spend $150. She said that Crikey should be asking *why* women are uninterested in subscribing rather than where are the political blogs by women. Her relative newness/lack of readers has fuck all to do with that. That is all.
Seems another thing that has not been mentioned is political or “uppity” female bloggers have to deal with a grossly inflated amount of threatening emails re: tracking you down and hate fucking you and the avalanche of other twisted sick porno insults.
Every female blogger I read has mentioned the sick fucks that target them on a regular basis.
Do male political bloggers have to put up with constant rape/stalking threats?
Of course, we then are accused are being “too sensitive” when we start to notice the familiar patterns of these human stains in comments sections and decide to avoid the debate.
@ Morisha – “Do male political bloggers have to put up with constant rape/stalking threats?”
I don’t think so. I used to know this guy who wrote a “political” blog along the lines of Maddox and all he ever got was praise and OMFG YOU’RE A GENIUS.
@ Fuck Politeness
Remember what happened to Frank Costanza though, serenity now, insanity later. I’m hoping for the whole “insanity now, serenity later”
Ah I guess the runny green shits would be the morons who think there aren’t that many political bloggers who are women. Also the ones who fail to ask WHY this is the case (if it is true, which I don’t believe for a second.) I can’t quite retrace my thought pattern from that one, cos I have this bad tendency to roll out of bed and onto the computer to rant, because it’s awesome and centres my chi for the day.
Does anyone here think that some of the generalisations in the comments here are no better the content they are critiquing?
Feel free to give an example and then I’ll give you an answer
Wow, I can’t believe the bullshit in that comment about News With Nipples. Apparently it’s laughable for women to have an opinion. And they’re wondering why they’re absent from those forums? Would have thought it would be self evident.
Great post FP. As usual.
How brave of you to comment on this ‘terrifying’ site shinynewcoin! ;p
(Oh a little shout out to Hannah’s Dad right now: HD your man parts are safe)
Phew.
Ta for that.
I’m an admirer of this site and your writing and hope to drop by occasionally if I feel I can contribute something useful.
Incidentally hannah is my dog, voted world’s best dog 5 years in a row now, and she is named after Hannah Nyala author of “Point Last Seen”.
Ok I’ll put a toe in.
This might be a little OT but I’m a bit nerdy in the sense I’ve been stuck in dark rooms looking at a lot of screens for a long time but I remember a very nerdy site call OS News which initially was run by a woman. She didn’t get the huge traffic of a comparable site like slashdot but it was an interesting site to hang around because it wasn’t dominated by testosterone. She didn’t get much reward for all her hard work and eventually some guys took it over, focused on making money and its never been the same since.
The interesting things that I take away from that little episode are that women are better at running inclusive debates and discussing issues that aren’t necessarily mainstream whereas most guys seem to open their mouth and expect the font of all knowledge to gush forth which seems to lead to the verbal diatribes that some people find offensive. Its not a sweeping generalisation, its just my own experience.
Maybe its an agenda setting thing, maybe its a socialisation habit that men carryover online but from my perspective some of the behaviour you refer to is pretty dumb and very alienating.
I’ve been following this stoush/debate/discussion continued silencing of women’s voices when they try and explain why they are not participating where and why they are politically engaging in other ways.
Anyhow, short version of all my thoughts is that it seems to me (warning: gross generalisation approaching)is that men see politics as something that you discuss and women see politics as something you live.
Take Bilb’s amazing insight/ridiculous comment @LP that ‘GIRLS’ (ffs) don’t know how to play fight. Oh I’m sorry I’m too busy fighting for maternity leave, or fighting sexual harassment, or fighting the second shift, looking after my sick children,(cos I don’t have a partner, or if I do, his income’s higher than mine so I look after the kids)etc etc insert any of the relevant battles that women face every day of their lives. THIS IS NOT A GAME FOR US.
(As an aside I think Possum is really wants to know ‘why doesn’t the aussie political blogosphere look like the US political blogosphere’ which is a completely different question).
(Oops, didn’t mean to press submit twice, FP, but please just publish the second one, it’ll have fewer errors (I shouldnt have had that 2nd scotch)- thx)
I keep trying to formulate a comment on the day’s events but I’m having trouble seeing through the rage induced aneurysm that was the result of reading PC use the phrase ‘go native’. So rather than type the stream of profanities I will leave you with this:
http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/19/where-are-all-the-men-bloggers/
I think I might <3 skud quite a bit!
@Rayedish You’re so right. But also I think what Possum wants to know is why women don’t do politics like him and therefore admire and respect him for doing it so very well. It’s a great question for him to ask because no matter the answer he can sit back and be sure of his brilliance and superiority talking about whatever it was Malcolm said today. Meanwhile bloggers like FP and Lauredhel and yourself are talking about people’s lives. But that’s me making a snap judgment about someone who has pissed me off monumentally. Wevs.
FP, sorry for leaving an angry comment on your “terrifying” blog. It’s just coz I was so “terrified”, you know
I believe the quote was ‘one scary site’ or similar. I was just a little shocked – there are occassionally comments where I’m a little discomforted and I’ll try to gently probe rather than to ban the comment so I guess there might be something there? But a scary site? Gee I sure am terrified of a sarcastic woman who doesn’t like SMH blogs or rape reporting!
See there’s no way in which I feel that my explanation would be listened to by people who make such pronouncements: I have a space where I shout back at the world over the issues I feel silenced/powerless over. But apparently there’s no difference between that and a guy on a thread refusing to listen to a woman’s lived experience and being abusive/personally insulting and dismissing/refusing to engage with her points.
One person pointed out that women weren’t the *only* ones disadvantaged (can you imagine? We live in a world where there are multiple oppressions! So SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR GENDERED ONE!).
Another…oh fuck it, who gives a shit. The whole point is that I’m not there because I don’t want to be because I don’t want to hear shit like that.
As Rayedish (I think) said over at yours perhaps the people being talked about should be the ones being listened to…so in a conversation about where are the women who are political bloggers perhaps ‘we are here’ could be engaged with, perhaps when the question is ‘why don’t women engage in this site more’ and some women say ‘because we feel unwelcomed/silenced’ that could be engaged with instead of this defensive crap.
It’s obvious that women do political blogs, as shinynewcoin says they don’t tend to meet the obviously gendered criteria defined by possum. His mistake and frankly just another reason why I wont be renewing my subs. Rayedish, I don’t think you can say “that men see politics as something that you discuss and women see politics as something you live” because it seems to imply that the actions or lives of men are not political which in this context is obviously not the case. Maybe I missed your point?
The commenter at LP demanding serious consideration of his theory that it’s all the wimmenz fault when said theory was gleaned from That 70’s Show is freaking hilarious.
What burns me is that women mounting sophisticated arguments are slapped aside with “this is just a stupid stoush”. Serious and protracted disagreement I can handle, but the parachuting in of some swinging dick to tell us the discussion is pointless and trivial makes me furious. It’s happened to Casey and to WP now. Idiots like The 70’s show dude are everywhere, but some serious damage is wrought by these highly respected commenters who police and trivialize women’s input. That’s one big barrier to participation right there.
” … I’d rather know that a guy being a smug shit slapping a woman in the face in a sideways manner to avoid moderation would GET MODERATED”
This. Totally.
I used to be much more active in various online communities, but over time I’ve dropped out. I’m simply sick of being ‘othered’ all the time. And sick of the subtle and not so subtle hostility directed towards women at a lot of these places. It’s come to the point where I’ve sort of ghettoised myself. I really only participate in spaces that are *actively* woman-friendly. Where active means that people get called out on their sexist bullshit. And really, this only seems to happen in feminist or women-majority spaces.
I read the crikey article re lack of women subscribers, and found it irritating. Even the title: “Crikey seeks women: for conversation, companionship and fun times”. Right there is some mighty fine othering of women – turning the headline into a personal ad – I mean, that’s a perfect example of crikey’s blokey-ness.
Also, the whole tone of the article was annoying, like: “Hay, our editorial team is split 50/50! So get over yourselves and get over here you wimmins!”
No thanks.
Also, sorry for the uber-long comment. I need my own blog. Oh wait, I have one
I used to join in with the big debates back when the Internet had a greater disparity in the gender of its users, and the general conversational style in public forums was very overtly Libertarian, “like it or lump it” etc. I wore myself out with all the debates, and decided a few years back to stop debating politics (and yes, by that I mean more the ‘female’ topics of feminism, oppression, minority rights, even the farking digital divide back then), because I realised that the debates didn’t change anyone’s opinions. This is definitely a depressing, negative perspective to take – but it was after around 5 years of fighting for what I realised was not much effect. Recently I’ve been getting more involved again, and am trying to control myself not to join in everywhere at once – but leave my mark, argue my piece, and NOT get drawn into the elongated ‘debates’ where a sexist little fuck just keeps trolling and disagreeing and insulting because, you know, that’s “online debate”. Anyway, my point is, people who don’t indulge in endless, very public (ie trolling Crikey comments threads rather than those on the apparently invisible HAT) debates which suck up a lot of time while delivering diminishing rewards are not necessarily scared little females who can’t handle the fucking heat. Gawd. It’s always the fault/problem of the person who’s sick to death of the bullshit – it’s never the fault/problem or even godforbid responsibility of the person/people who are creating the bullshit that drives people away.
/rant.
You have to wonder what the thinking was behind Crikey’s title “Crikey seeks..etc” coming hard on the heels of possum’s outbreak of foot in mouth. The post seems quite defensive in tone and the title is just wrong, my guess is the brains trust of crikey have got themselves caught up in navel gazing or something and instead of just acknowledging their dumbness in the first case they are trying to salvage some credibility while sticking to their blokey image.
Yeah that headline is just offensive and reeking of privilege.
Helen got in first, but I’m in the girlcrush fan club too. Your responses to AW at HAT were great, especially the charity one. I didn’t want to throw myself into the argument, but I could certainly see the irony of telling someone to take a charitable view of they comment they had made when they themselves had been less than charitable on a few very memorable occassions.
Do you know I started feeling bad about having made that slavery dig yesterday when the person it was responding to told me I was saying that she said that feminists couldn’t have stopped slavery.
Until I reread both my snark and the comment of hers which prompted it.
The tone was of the comment was that while some women preferred not to engage on major spaces like LP etc, others knew the big fights would not be won if they couldn’t stop being babies and engage with the meanies, and that if people had withdrawn to do politics differently then slavery would not have been ended – ie that it was by playing the game in the big arena that the fight was won.
So I made my snarky (and *admittedly* snarky) comment – I think it was quite clear (no?) that I was jabbing at the idea that we’re all apparently ducking the hard conversations and therefore not fighting the big fights, and being tongue in cheek about how if it was left to people like us (who won’t fight the good fight) slavery wouldn’t have ended.
So apparently then that means that my snarky comment has said that the person who referred to slavery in her comments said that feminists could never have ended slavery. And *I* am being told I have a ’stupid’ and ‘crazy’ interpretation of her words.
I did not in fact suggest that she *did* say feminists could never have ended slavery – I was discussing the fact that WP’s point about the validity and power of doing politics differently was somewhat elided by the remark which did tend to imply it was people who didn’t mind playing the game and dealing with the shit that were more heroic and got the ‘job done’ and that doing things in another way which withdraws from those major arenas would not have been effective. So you know. I’ll stand by that reading. Smart arse? Yep. Tongue in cheek? Yep. Same as saying someone said feminists couldn’t have ended slavery. Um. No actually.
And I’m just really curious – was it in putting aside feelings and playing by the mainstream rules that slavery was ended? I mean I’m not claiming to know all that much about it – I’m just wondering what activism and movements got it there.
Sigh. What a day.
I’m reading a book about it at the moment FP and although I’m not claiming to be any sort of expert, the first anti-slave activists were freed slaves whose lectures and agitation got the attention of the quakers and others.
When the trade in slaves ended(a long time before slave keeping ended)there was a confluence of economic and humanitarian arguments, and there is some disagreement about how much cynical self interest went under the guise of antislavery, but basically without the initial work of people who had once been enslaved, history would look very different today.
FP: Specifically USAn, but if you’re interested in some more woman-centred histories of the American Civil War and slavery, check out slave2tehtink’s sesquicentennial blog.
http://sesquicentennialmadness.wordpress.com/about/
I guess I have no specific *interest* in mind – I mean I’m interested generally. It’s just that I noted this on HAT that P.C spoke of the ‘colourful colonial history’ of the phrase “going native” for ‘those who know’ about it. And my readings haven’t led me to stumble across something that could be described as ‘colourful’ but rather fear of contamination linked in with phrenology and all kinds of violence. And then there was the assertion that slavery would not have ended if everyone had say opted out and done politics differently – which made me wonder in both cases – is it *actually* true. That is, is there some ‘anecdote’ PC relies on to say there’s a ‘colourful’ history for ‘those who know’ (is there some story in which it’s jovial/heartwarming). And even if there *is* it needs to sit alongside phrenology, massacres, removal of children, rape etc etc etc. The same occurred to me with the slavery analogy. I mean is it necessarily true that the main impetus/thrust of anti slavery, the main change came from those willing to ‘put aside their feelings’ and engage in more mainstream ways? Or was it more complex than that? Could the argument for instance have been made the other way? That slavery would not have ended if there had not been people willing to eschew the mainstream ways of doing things in favour of working for change in different ways? And even if it *is* historically accurate that it was the efforts of people putting their feelings to one side and engaging in the mainstream do we not learn from lessons? Like that it must have been humiliating for ex slaves to stand convincing white folk to take their views seriously, to actually respect their stories of their experience?
Ahem. I am being booted off the mac by my son. Ta for link.
[...] FuckPoliteness, as the name of the blog suggests, did not have much truck with Crikey’s arguments. While the big P penis people discussed big P political issues, women were “just discussing media, law, rape, issues with the medical profession, disability politics, invisibility, breastfeeding discrimination, conduct of politicians, live blogging elections, internet censorship, race politics, divisions in feminism, transphobia, homophobia, talk back radio, life/work/study/family/friends/leisure balances, and about a million other things.” She said that the public sphere that existed in the comment sections of blogs such as Larvatus Prodeo was a race to the bottom where women faced aggression and smug superiority. [...]
*waving internet pompoms wildly*