Linkdump 12-01-2013

[gominokouhai]

• Saving Lives in Serenity: Can a Fanboy and Physics Change a Movie?
  Short answer: no.
  (tags: scifi science film movies )
• 26 Moments That Restored Our Faith In Humanity This Year [i.e. 2012]
  This is glurge, but it's the good kind of glurge. I particularly approve of Parents Actually Making An Effort at #24.
  (tags: )
• The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer - and laughed as they did it
  "And so a new generation learns to appreciate the passion behind Labour pin-up Nye Bevan's famed declaration in 1948 that the Tories are `lower than vermin'."
  (tags: politics news bloodytories welfare )
• head/parapet | Stella Duffy
  "I know that I, for one, will be much less likely to mention trans at all, in any context, because the upset and anger over ‘getting it wrong’ (and it does seem there are some varying reactions, so this too is subjective) is too painful. And so we shut up. And nothing is said. And that’s really depressing."
  (tags: blogging socialmedia equality sexism )

Comments

[spiralsheep]

Dear Stella Duffy, FAIL.

[forthwritten]

You're linking to that Stella Duffy piece? It fundamentally fails to understand why trans* people were upset and gets into "wah, I am now too scared to write about the nasty trans* people in case they shout at me!". That sort of thing didn't sound great during the various Racefails. It doesn't sound great now.

[miss_s_b]

Plus one to this comment.

The Buzzfeed thing, on the other hand, Made me cry in a good way. Because I am an old soppy.

[gominokouhai]

I'm linking to it, that doesn't mean I agree with it. I do however think it is at least a teeny bit more balanced than the moronic series of diggings from Suzanne Moore. I think there are one or two valid points buried in there and it would be a shame for them to get lost in the noise.

[forthwritten]

I think there are more interesting posts out there - this one, for example - that don't make excuses for transphobia.

[gominokouhai]

Thank you. I will read more closely but that's going in the next linkdump.

I have to take issue with this one bit, though, before I go CRAZY:

"People are saying that intersectionality (you might want to google that if you don’t already know what it is), is diluting and undermining valid arguments against the crushing problems women (or any oppressed set of people) face. And that is an absurd thing to say."

I have googled it, and I still don't understand it. All it seems to be is an excuse for people to pick fights with people who are supposed to be on their own side. I would really appreciate it if someone could explain intersectionality to me in simple words.

[forthwritten]

Basically, "intersectionality" means acknowledging our various experiences, often in terms of privilege, and how these affect each other.

Think of it as getting dealt a hand of cards. You have a card for race, assigned gender at birth, sexuality, trans-cis identity, (dis)ability, class, education, immigrant status and so on. A few people get absolutely shitty hands and a few people have absolutely amazing hands. Most of us are in the middle - we have a good card or two and a shitty card or two and some others in the middle.

So, for example, someone might have cards for "white", "cis", "male" and "heterosexual" but a shitty card for "wealth". What intersectionality means is that this hypothetical man experiences his whiteness, cis-ness, male-ness and heterosexuality differently than someone who has those cards but has a good card for wealth - his class affects these things in different ways. However, he also has a different experience from someone who has the same shitty wealth card but who also has a woman/queer/non-white/disabled card. Intersectionality can account for complex situations, like poor white men and rich Black women, and help us understand that privilege doesn't occur along simple axes. It can also help identify areas where people experience multiple oppressions.

As an example, say a company decides to sack all its non-white women workers. Technically, they aren't being racist - after all, they're still employing non-white men. And technically they aren't being sexist - after all, they're still employing white women. However, people who exist in the middle of those intersections are being discriminated against.

Does that help?

ETA: in this specific context, white, cis, middle-class, able-bodied feminists are telling people that they should be focusing on their particular interpretation of feminism and leaving race, class, disability, trans* experiences etc out of it - bit like the lefty "you can have feminism after the revolution, how dare you accuse us of sexism, it distracts from class war" response.

[gominokouhai]

That helps a great deal, thank you.

I still have concerns. Isn't it ultimately divisive? I understand (much more so now than this morning) the importance of addressing complex situations, but none of us have had, can't possibly have had, exactly the same experiences of prejudice as anyone else. If we can't put aside our own internal differences, how can we expect others to?

And then there's my personal response to it all, which is this: I have most of the privileged cards, but I want to help. Am I allowed to do anything other than shut up and let you all get on with it without me?

> the lefty "you can have feminism after the revolution, how dare you accuse us of sexism, it distracts from class war" response

Very good point, but I do wonder about the wisdom of attempting to fight a war on all fronts at once.

[spiralsheep]

Which of these is more "divisive": supporting discrimination that divides people or people coming together to dismantle discrimination?

If we can't put aside our own internal differences, how can we expect others to?

Why would anyone want to "put aside" difference? (I don't think I understand your question?)

I do wonder about the wisdom of attempting to fight a war on all fronts at once.

Because you have a choice. If I chose to prioritise feminism over racism that won't prevent some racist killing me.

[gominokouhai]

I've answered part of this further downthread. Thank you. You made me think.

[forthwritten]

Personally, I find rampant, unchecked discrimination far more divisive. There are lefty groups that I won't go near because of their racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. I feel unwelcome and unsafe in those spaces, and I'm not risking verbal (and potentially physical) abuse to engage with them. I don't have to engage with them or attempt to educate them when I can work with people and groups who I actually like and who treat me with respect.

Personally, I like difference - I like the vast array of perspective people have and can bring. The issue for me is not putting aside difference, but how to react when faced with them - and especially how to react when you're part of the system that unthinkingly and unwillingly perpetuates hierarchies.

For example, I don't identify as disabled. Whether or not I am a disability ally is not my decision to make - I don't get to decide whether I am or not. I've encountered too many people who call themselves white allies but behave in really problematic ways. What I do try to do is be aware of access issues, never speak on behalf of people with disabilities if someone who actually experiences such issues is willing to speak, amplify their voices (whether this be through promoting their writing/events/activism or literally handing someone the mic and them speaking rather than me), listen and learn, and learn the etiquette. If I can help without talking over someone or denying them their voice I will do so - for example, in tutor training sessions I've pointed out access issues because no one else did. But basically, I take my lead from them.

I also don't think it's fighting on all fronts so much as being the change we want to see in the world. If we can't manage this in our own activist and lefty communities, how can we do so outside these communities?

[gominokouhai]

> especially how to react when you're part of the system that unthinkingly and unwillingly perpetuates hierarchies

I think I've figured out where I've been going wrong on this one. I've been automatically assuming that equality movements are by default relatively safe spaces, since the people there are generally sort-of pro-equality and that's better than the alternative, isn't it? Again, this is largely to do with my unexamined privilege, since I've never been a female or a minority in such a space.

Example: upthread spiralsheep notes that If I chose to prioritise feminism over racism that won't prevent some racist killing me. My immediate response was going to be that I would hope hypothetical murderous racists would already feel unwelcome at a feminist convention. I see now how glib that would have been.

So I can appreciate the value that intersectionality brings, mostly thanks to you and the other commenters on this post. I do still think that it brings with it a danger of subfactionalism at times when there should be more of a focus on the big picture, but I can see how it's much more important to have it than not.

[spiralsheep]

My immediate response was going to be that I would hope hypothetical murderous racists would already feel unwelcome at a feminist convention. I see now how glib that would have been.

Especially the assumption that non-white people could automatically access feminist conferences in places with economic or racial segregation. There are feminist spaces in Britain now that specifically exclude transwomen (which is where this discussion began).

For your education: I've had racist and sexist death threats credible enough for the police to involve themselves. Your implication that my example was unrealistic was an extreme example of your privilege and your failure to understand the depths of disprivilege inflicted on ordinary people in this place and time.

I do still think that it brings with it a danger of subfactionalism at times when there should be more of a focus on the big picture

Because you think your grasp of what is important in "the big picture" is better than people who suffer from intersectional disprivilege and you don't trust us to know the facts and make appropriate decisions. Now think again about your failure to grasp that death threats and racist murders are real. Whose grasp of the facts, of "the big picture", is a problem, you with your oblivious privilege or me with my informed intersectionality?

[spiralsheep]

Also, another recent example of intersectionality fail, which I mention because it's a repeated pattern of behaviour is that a woman who claimed she was raped by a prominent male activist has been told that her rape accusation might damage a group's activism so she should silence herself for the good of the big picture the movement... but wait... am I talking about Martin Smith of the SWP or Julian Assange of wikileaks or the rapists at Occupy camps or... except I don't have time to type in the full list even merely from the last year. So, who decides when "the big picture" is more important than the oppression of minorities within activist movements: the oppressors who want to get away with their oppressive activities in the name of "big picture" activism or their minority victims who want social justice?

[spiralsheep]

"intersectionality" = when transwomen are differently disprivileged to women or transmen.
"intersectionality" = when ("tanned") Brazilian women are differently disprivileged than (white) British women or Brazilian men.

[spiralsheep]

If it would help anyone reading this to consider "intersectionality" from a perspective they're possibly currently less involved in then this post discusses the theory and practice of economics + race + gender at Occupy Wall St:

http://anticapitalists.org/2012/08/15/the-pitfalls-of-privilege/

(I offer this post because it happens to be the most recent "intersectionality" post I bookmarked this afternoon.)

[gominokouhai]

This is an excellent piece. It addresses most of my questions before I've asked them. Thank you.

[spiralsheep]

You're welcome.

[gominokouhai]

And this:

"If the left is about equality and if feminism is about women, then in the left, everyone should have an equal voice, and in feminism, all women should have an equal voice. Nobody – NOBODY – should be required to button their lip until we get to some unidentified benchmark in the great struggle for equality".

I think I see the point that chiller is making here, but logically, wouldn't that apply to Suzanne Moore too?

On "equality"

[spiralsheep]

It does apply to Moore (although as a media celebrity she has a MORE than equal "voice"). She can be as racist and transphobic as she wants. She also doesn't have to acknowledge her racism and/or transphobia when ppl point them out to her. She also doesn't have to apologise or change her ways.

Of course, if she chooses to be racist and transphobic then she can't realistically claim she's treating Other people as "equal" or that she's working towards "equality" because in that case she would only be helping white cis women's privilege while maintaining inequality for the victims of her racism and transphobia.

Re: On "equality"

[gominokouhai]

> Of course, if she chooses to be racist and transphobic then she can't realistically claim she's treating Other people as "equal" or that she's working towards "equality"

I think she gave up claiming that some time back now. The Graun article that, loosely paraphrased, read "screw you guys I'm going home" didn't help.

Re: On "equality"

[spiralsheep]

Yes, I cynically note that Moore chose to give up her platform on twitter, where people can engage with her as equals, while retaining her platform on the Graun where her voice is overwhelmingly privileged.

[purplecat]

I do hate it when the response to someone complaining about their representation in the media is some form of "You should be grateful we're mentioning you at all", often followed up with "In fact I'm never ever going to mention people like you again because you were so mean to me, so there!"

Yes individual members of minorities often express themselves angrily. Sometimes they are incoherent and sometimes criticisms are wrong. But reacting to that by effectively refusing to engage with that minority at all does somewhat suggest that you never had any real interest in their welfare in the first place.

NB. Have noted your comment above saying you don't necessarily agree with the piece.

[spiralsheep]

"You should be grateful we're mentioning you at all", often followed up with "In fact I'm never ever going to mention people like you again because you were so mean to me, so there!"

I thought Duffy's version of this was especially ridiculous though cos it boiled down to:

"Either we're allowed to revile [disprivileged group] publicly with hate-comments OR WE WON'T MENTION YOU AT ALL!!1!!"

Not rly a tough choice old Duffer, lolz.

[purplecat]

The post linked to seemed to involve a lot of 'splaining about why the author, having previously been sympathetic to trans-folk, was now proposing not to mention them again because sometimes, some of them, can be mean to well-meaning but otherwise clumsy footed cis-folk.

Suzanne Moore who I had, err, never heard of before yesterday does seem to be more in the "I never liked trans people anyway" camp in which case "we didn't need you on our 'side'" does appear to be the only logical response.

[spiralsheep]

Duffy appeared, to me, to be having an anxiety-powered attack of feet-in-mouth but that doesn't make it any less bad for the disprivileged people she's hurting (or the privileged people she's propping up).

Moore is usually less problematic on trans issues than, for example, Julies Birchill or Bindel. I suspect that's why people tried to talk to her instead of immediately retreating to their own spaces and posting about her "behind her back" (as it were). I hope when she's calmed down, and stopped the knee-jerk self-justifying (which we all do to some extent), that she has a rethink. Unfortunately she has enough unhelpful "supporters" to reward her for continued bad behaviour and many of those "supporters" would, no doubt, turn on her if she rethinks (and status quo supporters usually have more social power than disprivilege resisters so, as this is a matter of professional status for Moore...). I can hope though.