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Feminism 101

  
  

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ONLY NICE THINGS
15:55 / 05.03.06
Oh, don't get me wrong, yawn. I agree entirely that we should change the name. I don't think this place is true to what one would expect of a message board called "Barbelith". It is my fond hope that this process of progressive disappointment will continue, although at times it seems like a struggle against the odds.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:38 / 05.03.06
if anything I'd say aggression was directed towards me with nina and Smoothly more concerned in trying to uncover some lumpen truth about my personality

I wasn't aggressive at all. By the time you called me prejudiced I had written one post and asked you a few specific questions. That you lumped me in with Smoothly and assumed I was just going along is the best fucking evidence I've heard that we need these threads. Go and read the thread without your prejudices and then come back here and explain why you behaved like that. I don't give a crap that you're an arse to everyone, I care that you decided that I was being aggressive in your mind on the basis of nothing.
 
 
The Falcon
16:58 / 05.03.06
I'd imagine it was on the basis of this, which I wouldn't call an unemotive question.

Certainly it's hard to gather an appreciation of tone from purest text, but still. I read it, past and present, as a somewhat aggressive inquisition.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
17:06 / 05.03.06
I don't even know how to respond to that.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
17:08 / 05.03.06
Ask someone a plain and direct question and take responsibility for their emotional reaction while they tell you to appreciate debate (while failing to engage in it)? That seems a little obscene.
 
 
The Falcon
17:57 / 05.03.06
Why the shift to a personal question in the midst of a discussion about a teleplay? What were you attempting to establish?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:10 / 05.03.06
I was asking him to confirm whether he thought his own experiences mapped on to his perception of the drama. The simplest and most direct way to do that was to just ask him the specific question rather than hedge round it. It seems blunt but I prefer to be direct and honest with people, games annoy me enough when I'm forced to play them in real life, I choose not to spend my leisure time dancing around simple truths as well.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:26 / 05.03.06
I add that it's completely up to whoever I ask to answer or disregard questions like the one I addressed to Yawn but to respond to a straight question- and yes it was a question with no clauses, no sarcasm, no brutality indicated at all- with such a level of aggression is a choice that I don't think is particularly well thought out. I suspect that he was applying a judgement to me that would be correct with some of the people here but wasn't applicable to my posting style. He was pre-empting an attack that was never intended.
 
 
The Falcon
18:52 / 05.03.06
Due respect, I think the question could have been phrased closer to your first sentence (two posts above) there, but I'd be over the moon to chalk it as dual misunderstanding and go back to happy(ish) families.

Readers - how many metaphors are mixed above?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:18 / 05.03.06
I do have a tendency to think of one thing, post it and then realise there was something else queueing in my brain. I work in the same way, write in the same way, cook in the same way... I'm afraid it's just me and I don't like to moderate clarification in, I feel like it might give me an unfair hook if someone posts inbetween.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:35 / 05.03.06
I think that's perfectly reasonable, especially since mod requests can take quite a while to go through.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
21:38 / 05.03.06
Nina's post is in response to one of mine, which I deleted as I didn't want to pull this thread any further away from its intended purpose, nor to accidentally kick off a whole new round of personality aggro. Figured she'd be one of the two mods to field the request - apparently not. My mistake.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:41 / 05.03.06
Umm...

you guys do realise nobody's actually discussed any gender issues since about a third of the way down the previous page, don't you?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:43 / 05.03.06
Okay, three-quarters.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:51 / 05.03.06
Don't look at me, I actually asked a question.
 
 
Olulabelle
21:55 / 05.03.06
That's because people post what makes them feel uncomfortable, or talk about why they think this thread is needed and then all the people those posts relate to come and argue the point, that it wasn't sexist, that it was just this or that.

I frequently post more than once. It's a lot to do with how my brain works. I don't plan ahead exactly what I'm going to say, so sometimes another thought occurs to me afterwards. I haven't seen many men do this but I may be wrong.

Possibly it's that women may be more instantly responsive, they are more emotive than objective. An objective poster will plan and calculate ahead, an emotive one will respond more quickly, hence the sometime double or triple posting, one thought after another.

I don't think either of these posting traits are more correct than the other; a calculated post can be perceived to be bland, an emotive post can be perceived to be too personal and responsive. An emotive post may address an issue more honestly but perhaps lack concrete fact or example, whereas an objective one may be intellectually accurate but perhaps lacking in real feeling.

Both these styles of posting are equally as valuable as the other. They're just different, that's all.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
22:04 / 05.03.06
They are, but if we're looking for explanations as to why poster X gets a different response than poster Y, when both were, in effect, saying the same thing, it's important to recognise that the different styles exist.

Not saying it excuses it, but that question of *why* has been raised a few times, both here and in P&H.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:06 / 05.03.06
I don't plan ahead exactly what I'm going to say, so sometimes another thought occurs to me afterwards. I haven't seen many men do this but I may be wrong.

I do it a lot. I just did!

I was more commenting on the fact that one of the best threads we've had in the Convo for ages has turned into the same one we always get, only with different people this time. People arguing about a fight they had elsewhere on the board, rather than the subject.

(Sorry, I'm grumpy tonight, and may well apologise for the above in the morning. But I kind of hope I don't).
 
 
Olulabelle
22:12 / 05.03.06
Randy, Do you think that poster Y might get a different response because poster Y is generally male and since the board is male dominated more people can relate to poster Y's post?

I think it might be the case. But that doesn't make poster X's post any less valuable, just less valued in this space.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:14 / 05.03.06
When I'm angry or emotional I rarely need to post twice. It's usually the slow contemplative stuff that leaks out. My posts above weren't written in anger at all, actually I usually edit angry posts so severely that everything I need to say comes out while I'm staring at them, this was a little more instant as I'd looked at the thread in question a couple of times this week. In this case I took the time to look back at the Poliakoff thread to refresh my memory of the original posts and then replied. My brain simply queued something up that only made itself clear once I'd hit post because I'd been examining the idea for a while.

I do this when people ask me questions and I'm concentrating on something else... answer two minutes later. I know a lot of men who do this too so I don't think it's a female thing necessarily or even an emotional one, sometimes it occurs from focus on a point rather than the issue at large.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
22:26 / 05.03.06
Randy, Do you think that poster Y might get a different response because poster Y is generally male and since the board is male dominated more people can relate to poster Y's post?

Of course I do.

I'm really struggling to make myself understood here, and I'm not helping myself.

It's mainly a response to GGM's question in the P&H thread, where she asks why two specific male members can frequently post angry without much negative comeback, but a specific female poster can't, and it's been banging around my head since the question was posted, without anywhere to go.

I'm saying that there may well be an element of something else in the response that Nina gets besides sexism and that this has to be taken into account before attributing the differences in response to an issue of gender. Does the fact that Nina is female make it easier for some to bring out the hysteria flags? Undoubtedly. Can their posting styles be compared directly, as if they're both exactly the same? No.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:35 / 05.03.06
would you feel comfortable inviting men into your space, or if others did it around you?)

Sorry for the delay Papers, I've been considering this for a few hours actually and I have to confess that I'm a little concerned about the notion of the board as a safe space. That's primarily because it isn't a safe space for f-i posters and no real discussion of the issue can be held with people who have potentially made it so can happen here. I personally wouldn't have started the thread in Policy because I think this topic is really about m-i posters as well as f-i or rather the possible and actual responses of m-i (sorry people, I just can't be arsed to write female-identified and vice versa anymore- just substitute it in your heads). I don't think that those spaces are fundamentally negative, they're worthwhile in that they provide somewhere to hash out perceptions that people share. In second wave feminism they were necessary and extremely important forums for people who needed to understand how to take the issue forward.

In a sense I think that third wave feminism happened to early. I regard it almost as a denial of the work that didn't succeed because when you look at the way the world is functioning the aims simply weren't achieved to their potential extent. Will a safe space work practically on barbelith? I don't think so because you can't isolate the board from the majority of its readers and participants. If we want that forum than we need to take it outside, something that I would actually be perfectly willing to do and have an ongoing discussion away from the influences of barbelith itself for the f-i on barbelith.

I think that the timing of this thread was right but I'm a little concerned about the speed with which it's grown. It's burned out as Stoatie points out and I'm not sure that we've had enough time or put enough thought into where we want it to go. I'm not sure myself. It's pretty clear that there are people on this board who do not really recognise the points here as viable although they don't want to extrapolate on that. I suggest that everyone who wants to engage with this takes a step back and think about how this actually plays out here rather than simply theorising. I would genuinely like the result to be an actual change in the way that sexism and misogyny plays out on barbelith and how it should be tackled.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:40 / 05.03.06
I'm saying that there may well be an element of something else in the response that Nina gets besides sexism and that this has to be taken into account before attributing the differences in response to an issue of gender.

Ah, my posting style is the reason I never get valorised? Care to find an example of a f-i person on this board who gets lauded for their anger?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:43 / 05.03.06
Lula: I don't plan ahead exactly what I'm going to say, so sometimes another thought occurs to me afterwards. I haven't seen many men do this but I may be wrong.

Stoat:I do it a lot. I just did!

I tend to do this (double-posting) but curtail because it makes me feel like an overenthusiastic goober. But I'm a goober anyway, so there you go.

Lula: I think it might be the case. But that doesn't make poster X's post any less valuable, just less valued in this space.

Um, I feel uncomfortable with this statement because it makes a big assumption about all males (in fact, all beings) in this space. "Less valued" presumes I ignore posts by Poster X. I may not directly respond to something Poster X has said, but this may have to do with me (a) lacking the articulation skill, (b) not being able to comment on the post, or (c) I don't feel the need to argue with it. Are you referring to an instance where X & Y say the same thing at the same time, or just them saying the same thing in different instances? If it's a simultaneous situation, I will tend to favour whichever of the two I feel more comfortable responding too, mostly due to personal interaction based on who X & Y are.

Nina: I do this when people ask me questions and I'm concentrating on something else... answer two minutes later. I know a lot of men who do this too so I don't think it's a female thing necessarily or even an emotional one, sometimes it occurs from focus on a point rather than the issue at large.

Thank you for saying this, Nina. I find part of my problem is I have moments where I feel like (to use a GM X-Men reference) Quentin Quire - not all super-intelligent or anything, just having a lot of very big thoughts and feelings and them moving too fast to put all together at once. They sputter out in random posts...
 
 
Olulabelle
22:53 / 05.03.06
I know a lot of men who do this too so I don't think it's a female thing necessarily or even an emotional one, sometimes it occurs from focus on a point rather than the issue at large.

OK, I can understand that. I'm just trying to work things out in my head.

So how can we address what Randy is saying; that in essence the difference between what a female (in this case Nina) might say and what a male poster might say is incomparable, and in fact have very different responses, even when the post is of a very similar nature?

Nina's posting style is more direct and objective than some females on the board, me included. And although she does sometimes posts angrily, those posts are usually well grounded. This happens much more amongst the male identifed posters, but the posts elicit a very different reaction.

So are you saying that because Nina is female people may well read something she posts differently to a male identified poster, and if so, why?

Nina is not representative of the females on this board because we all have very different posting styles, as men do. But a female poster is more likely to draw confrontation when she posts emotively than a male one.

What is it that causes this reaction?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:00 / 05.03.06
You might as well ignore everything I said, Lula, as Nina's made it perfectly clear that she believes my comments are motivated by personal dislike and form part of some imaginary, pathetic ongoing vendetta.

I don't have the energy.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
23:00 / 05.03.06
Nina: Sorry for the delay Papers, I've been considering this for a few hours actually and I have to confess that I'm a little concerned about the notion of the board as a safe space. That's primarily because it isn't a safe space for f-i posters and no real discussion of the issue can be held with people who have potentially made it so can happen here.

No worries, the original question got lost in last deluge there for a while. I was more thinking physical meatspace "safe zones" / women's centres, rather than asking about Barbelith - I was just curious what you're reaction to that was, and you've made it fairly clear. I don't think the Barb can be a safe zone in the same sense, I think I'd rather think of it as a positive space where communication is paramount. Ideally. You know. Thingee. Ideal world. But I don't think it can function as a happyfun space where everybody gets along, I suppose it just needs to be capable of processing and cleansing potentially pre-cancerous cells and transforming them and/or growing as a result.

I personally wouldn't have started the thread in Policy because I think this topic is really about m-i posters as well as f-i or rather the possible and actual responses of m-i (sorry people, I just can't be arsed to write female-identified and vice versa anymore- just substitute it in your heads).

Which was my frustration with the "male response" thread when I really just wanted to able to talk to everybody about it.

I don't think that those spaces are fundamentally negative, they're worthwhile in that they provide somewhere to hash out perceptions that people share. In second wave feminism they were necessary and extremely important forums for people who needed to understand how to take the issue forward.

My experience with them has mostly be in university settings back before I graduated; the women's centre being another advocacy group alongside the Pride Collective and other groups - there was quite a bit of tension between all of them because they wanted budget money and were all in competition for it, which was frustrating because of the overlap between. Lesbian friends, for example, wandering between the two offices. The Pride office seemed to default toward pretty much whoever happened to feel like wandering by, regardless of gender, sexuality, or race (well, to some extent because it's not a utopia and there were always problems like in any system). The pride office was also a safe space but it was less specific.
 
 
Ganesh
23:06 / 05.03.06
I suspect the question of who is and isn't 'lauded for anger' deserves a thread of its own, in which specific posters, posting styles and situations can be discussed by way of example. While I think it's probably quite fair to say perceived gender plays a part in overall reaction to angry posts, it's only one of several factors. Another is the oft-claimed allegation that there exists a 'Barbelith royalty' who get away with angry/snarky comments that, from anyone else, would attract mucho criticism. Then, I guess, there's perceived knowledge/reasonableness/value to the board, etc., etc.

All of these likely overlap with gender, and teasing out the influence of gender isn't likely to be straightforward.
 
 
Olulabelle
23:09 / 05.03.06
Papers, I'm really not saying that posts by poster X are ignored because I don't think they are at all. But as Nina says, Care to find an example of a f-i person on this board who gets lauded for their anger? There are many examples of that happening with male-identified posters, but it's unlikely you'll find a female-identified one.

I think that male-identified posters are more likely to be lauded for something less likely to be considered acceptable in female posters especially when posting emotively.

I mean, I got angry in the men's thread and then a male poster made a remark about that and as a result of that discussion subsequently got barbequoted even though the post used a word that I consider to be quite misogynistic. To be fair, in the original thread where the word was used several people brought it up, but to be barbequoted? Given that this discussion is happening, I don't really get that at all, unless maybe male-identified posters actively don't care?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:14 / 05.03.06
In future I'm going to run all my posts past Ganesh so that he can reword them in a way that won't have people assuming they're the result of me dragging emotional baggage around.

In other words: what he said.
 
 
Ganesh
23:18 / 05.03.06
(Incidentally, Chambers Online has "valorise" meaning "to fix or stabilize the price of (a commodity, etc), especially by a policy imposed by a government or other controlling body". Is this what you meant, Nina, or were you thinking more of lionisation?)
 
 
Olulabelle
23:32 / 05.03.06
Ganesh: Another is the oft-claimed allegation that there exists a 'Barbelith royalty' who get away with angry/snarky comments that, from anyone else, would attract mucho criticism.

I think that's true, but I think Nina is probably considered to be one of the 'Barberoyalty'. If I'm right then her different treatment may not be due to that, because then she would be afforded the 'Barberoyalty rights' that others have. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

It's interesting that another 'Barberoyal', Mordant, has a suit that is gender unspecific and so is presumed male, and as already referenced somwhere (God knows where) GGM was also perceived to be male but in a previous incarnation this may not have been the case. It may be helpful to know if there was any difference in response as far as GGM was concerned.

Mister Disco has already referenced this in the Women Friendly Barbelith thread, where he said:

So, speakin' as ex-Rosa Luxembourg, recalling the many, many times that I was accused of hysteria and man-hating insanity as Rosa and the complete absence of those accusations since I changed my name to Mister Disco...

It's a very relevant point that seems to have strangely gone unnoticed.
 
 
Ganesh
23:37 / 05.03.06
And 'Ganesh' is sometimes taken as female, more so when I was 'Ganesha'.

My point is, Lula, that the question of anger/snarkiness and gender deserves more detailed scrutiny, particularly if we're going to look at the 'Barberoyalty' issue. I think it would be useful to take it out of the feminism-themed threads and examine it in a more general way - because, as I say, perceived gender is just one of several factors.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
23:37 / 05.03.06
Lula: I think that male-identified posters are more likely to be lauded for something less likely to be considered acceptable in female posters especially when posting emotively.

I suppose. Barbequote tends to be filled with those kinds of statements -- people laughing at whatever so-and-so said to beat down so-and-so-2's statement, usually of an emotive or vicious variety. But just because some people will barbequote something doesn't mean it's universally "lauded" - quite often m-i posters will react to something with a bit of a beat-down but it doesn't follow that because some people laud their response as hilarious or right-on or whatever means it's universal. I'm sorry no one said anything about the misogynistic barbequote (out of curiousity, was it a contextual inclusion, or was it part of the "joke"?)

Occasionally I can't be bothered to say anything because the response has essentially made the thread boring for me ("Oh, they're at it again. Right, let's check another thread"), regardless of the poster's gender. Other times, as Ganesh pointed out above, the poster is of "royal lineage" and I feel uncomfortable saying anything because, you know, everybody else thinks it's the bee's knees that they've just given a what-for.

I think at some point I lost my point up there.

There's posting emotively, there's posting angrily, and then there's posting viciously, which usually derails the thread with debate over whether such-and-such was a viable reaction. I actually rarely differentiate between the genders of the participants. Tabitha Tickletooth has posted angrily and I was quite impressed with her post, for example of one of the other varieties. A vicious post is something different regardless, but I don't neccessarily say anything because it usually gets buried in the ensuing dogpile and I'd rather just try to say something useful to the actual thread. Does that make any sense and does that even address what you're saying? I'm not sure.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
23:45 / 05.03.06
I don't know if *anger* in itself ever plays all that well on teh boad though, whoever's responsible. Biting satire, cruel wit, etc, seem to turn out OK, but if there was a top ten list of reasons why Barbelith members would prefer to forget posts they'd made in the past, I'm guessing *anger* would be right up there, along with *Oh no... all that booze...* and *oh god Brian, no... please... not the tenth tab of acid...*
 
  

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