May 2008 Archives

Comment the First:

I just upgraded this Movable Type install, and comments might be broken -- for certain, the "comment from your LiveJournal account" ability is busted.  I ask for your patience in this.

Comment the Second:

This is as much for other areas I post in, as for here.  For the lay of the land, I turn to a recent post at Talk to Action, a space that combats the Religious Right:

Back in the 90s, for example, the DC PR shops told us that all we had to do was call everyone we didn't like "religious political extremists." They had focus-grouped this and other such phrases, had power point presentations and contracts with major interest groups and the Democratic Party. Problem solved! No one actually had to do (or pay for) the hard work of learning enough about the religious right to be able to make sound, fact-based judgements about what was important; what was not; how to make an effective argument; or develop effective means of communicating it.

I think recent history has born us out, as the Democratic Party has had to scramble to recover from the widely held perception that the party was unfriendly, if not actually hostile to people of faith. This perception was partly due to many years of pounding unfair characterizations of the party by the Religious Right and their allies in the GOP. But it was also created by this particularly counter-productive response from the party and related interest groups.

Knowing the difference between bigotry and fair criticism is an integral part of the task of contending with the religious right.

What does this mean?   I work my tail off to make commentary that's informed by my experiences and study, by careful observations and thinking outside the box on the critical issues of the day.  I do expect to be countered, encourage it in fact.  I do expect people to challenge my assumptions, and to make me think through every aspect of what I say and do, here.

And when you do so, you bring some damned facts, or at least informed opinions.

As we grow in numbers here, as people add their voice, I will be diligent in not only what I say, but in allowances as to what others say.  If you can't string together something that brings light to the discussion, expect it to be snipped like an enunch.

Some people are, indeed, Just Plain Stupid.
Others? Others, I just pity.

Some of you know that, instead of attended the PA Folktours Belly Dance camp, I attended the Wiscon Science Fiction convention, of which I've written about here before.

The accounting of the "trolling" at this year's Wiscon has had many tellings; the one at Alas, a blog seems to be the best of the lot.

What happened, in a nutshell, is that some young lady choose to mock Certain People at Wiscon on a fairly large online forum. This mocking was, in the main, for not matching up to mainstream ideas of looks. She took images of people of "a size", and sought to mock these women, sought to degrade them, for a joke. She attended their panels just so she could have fuel for her fire, words to add to how she saw them as pathetic. Indeed, there are a ton of issues surrounding this to unpack, so I'm going to take a tack some have not, and in the meantime, express a piece of gratitude about the Con.

The many, many stereotypes about Feminists are stupid. And one Moss invoked in the the second half of her "report" was that Feminists are single-mindedly supporting Hiliary Clinton. She went so far as to complain when, at one panel, there was reasoned and intelligent discussion about the campaign, not marred by partisan bickering! How dare these reasonable feminists ruin her mocking!

Feminists are not brainwashed. We are not all of a type, and much of what happens at places like this is that the various styles and ideas about Feminism come together, and talk, and work forward. It's true, I suspect, that the fact that it's also Fandom mitigates some aspects, yet I can also say that this is true in many of the places and groups I worked in with I was in the movement on a more active basis. Just as in the "belly dance" community, I've been accepted, and rejected, so too is the Feminist community not all of one type.

That Moss saw Feminists -- saw Women -- being reasonable, and intelligent, and accepting differences, blew her "thesis" (shambling mess that it was) out of the water. That she saw all types of people and bodies there, she expected. But I don't think she at all expected them to be intelligent, and rational, and to be willing to be strong, and fight back. That they would use their voice to call shame to her escapade, and to show her the errors of her ways.

Moss shows that Objectification isn't always about "sexy people". Just as Jim Crow America reinforced the Objectification of African-Americans, so too do acts like this render people with non-mainstream bodies into Objects of derision. Acts like this try to re-enforce the stereotypes that separate and bind us all. Certainly, women who dance regularly in public have seen every evidence of this.

By not being a meeting of stereotypes, and being a meeting of open minds and brilliant ideas, I am grateful to Wiscon. And by finding a voice to their anger, and using in to change the outcome of this morass, I give honor to those who have been done ill by this act.

And for those who wonder why I went to a "Feminist Science Fiction" convention, I say to you -- because of that last paragraph.

I'll be writing more about my experiences there, and soon.