May 14, 2009
by millicent
Dear CF,
What a delicious problem you’ve brought to our picnic table. Of course feminism shouldn’t be divisive. It should be like being pro-human, or pro-kid. BUT. By the time I finished this post I realized I was defending divisiveness and having a problem, not with feminism, but with how it gets tacitly defined (or rather undefined) on sites like Jezebel. Maybe you can help me work this out.
I like your explanation of XX in 3)–that it’s a shined and softened 2.0 version of something a bit more raw and funkified.
You know, it’s funny—I remember being irritated by the XX blog on Slate when it first came out, and am irritated still. I was irked by Jezebel when it started too. That said, I’m pleased by the juggernaut Jezebel has become. It’s a vigorous animal, though the accusations of “echo-chamberhood” might have some merit.
I enjoy Jez. I look at it daily. I like its size and its breadth and the ways in which it’s slowly expanded to include the merely frivolous as well as the concerns and injustices of third world women. It offers a much-needed vehicle for smart-girl niggles and nostalgia (oh, Fine Lines!!). And yet sometimes it reminds me of a much younger version of the woman I idolized but never quite wanted to be.
To get back to your question, though: why are all these women shying away from feminism? I’m as irritated by this as you are. (I’m apparently a grumpy gus today.) I’m surprised at Sarah Haskins.
Let’s take seriously the case against feminism for a second. Many critics of (let’s call it “XX”-wave) feminism claim the “movement” has become about the right to choose in the most frivolous way possible. In the Jez comments a consensus frequently emerges that everything a woman does can potentially fit under the feminist umbrella. Except judging another woman.
(Isn’t it ironic that as we as a nation are talking about the merits of having another female Supreme Court Justice, judging has become a bad word?)
The ladyblogs frequently try to root their mission in a set of ethical principles–“no bodysnarking” has become a mantra on Jez. But the results, which amount to prepublication censorship, can be, well, a bit Animal Farmish. It’s been interesting to watch this happen. The discourse community Jez generated was too big for the site to develop the fearful and snarky commenting culture Gawker achieved in its heyday (when there were executions, and when a commenting account was difficult to come by). Instead, Jez is regulated (quite capably) by hortense. And while it would be a mistake to call Jez humorless—it’s hilarious—it’s also true that the humor is carefully circumscribed and that the editors have no sense of humor about themselves. For all Linda Hirshman and company might claim otherwise, this is no longer a blog based on transgression. God forbid someone should criticize Tracie—who suffered plenty at the hands of Gawker commenters and has developed a coping mechanism called Napoleonic petulance.
I wonder if the issue with Jez in particular (I don’t know Feministing very well) isn’t—and I may be projecting here, because I see this is in myself—that Jez’s driving principle isn’t action but reaction. Maybe reaction is the only kind of action possible on a site like this? Action is impossible because it demands initiative, an agenda and a mandate?
The blog seems to be struggling constantly with two ideological extremes:
- one, frequently articulated by the commenters: everyone is different. How dare anyone reduce women as a class to anything? We are all snowflakes. This comes up in response to scientific studies or behavioral pieces.
- The other extreme, where Wrong and Right have a small but well-regulated kingdom: Jez has become a blog for women with a very specific, if obvious, take on women’s issues and condemns people along fairly nondebatable lines: rape is bad. Children being forced to marry is bad. Domestic violence is bad. Photoshop is bad. I agree with you that Jez did something new. It used to be much more polemical than this —more along the lines of Bitch Ph.D—but as posts have gotten shorter and more frequent and the commenting culture hardened, I feel the editors have smoothed and polished the provocative edge that the XX Factor takes to task. (Frankly, that article, beyond its more obvious problems, is a hopelessly outdated analysis of Jezebel.)
It seems to me that this tension produces a culture of feminism where a two-tier system of choice is established, and only the “choices” that don’t really matter—whether or not to take a husband’s last name, for instance—benefit from the snowflake treatment. Being a feminist means I have the right to choose! To judge another woman is girl-on-girl crime!
The problem, of course—and Jez struggles with this too—is that those choices do matter. To create a hierarchy of choice is to suggest that certain things matter more than others. Should taking a husband’s last name be a political issue or merely a question of aesthetic taste?
These conversations happen in the comments. You said, by the way, dear CF, that you exclude the commenters in your analysis. As you can tell I’m incapable of doing that; I think the commenters are critical to Jezebel and what it’s become. The XX blog is a very different animal, I think, precisely because it doesn’t allow for that direct engagement between poster and postee.
I’m not sure Jez the blog is conscious of that tension, which is potentially a paralyzing one. I occasionally read AskMen to see what the menfolk or talking about. It’s instructive. There is no pretence that men are snowflakes; the site’s whole project is about subordinating your individualism to the demands of sex and money.
Jezebel wants to have it both ways, and that’s what makes it interesting and frustrating. Mainly, I think, because of the issue of “girl-on-girl crime”? Feminism was never about the absence of judgment. When I watch Bea Arthur as Dorothy (and I have been, lately, a lot), it’s her judgment that I admire. She is a judgmental character. Deeply flawed, but, like Judge Judy, sure of the moral and political codes that guide her decisions.
The chaotic kind of “right to choose” feminism seems to be emerging on Jez—a goodhearted, communal approach whose philosophical confusion derives, I think, from its unique mix of social life with political discussion. Politics and social worlds have never mixed well, as Emily Post and Miss Manners can tell you. Anytime an opinion is expressed about porn or sex work, someone crops up who works in the industry and the issue gets humanized, which is both interesting and problematic in a blog that’s as much about social identities as about ideas. The consensus to withhold judgment has the unintended effect, I think, of exploding any kind of generative code, be it moral, political, or otherwise.
Underlying the whole project is the terrible possibility of rejection. We are women, we are friends. Even though we’re all unique and have different views. This is all well and good. It’s the tacit conclusion—let’s all be on the same side—that gets sketchy.
This gets back, I guess, to my objection to the title and concept of Slate’s ladyblog. Genetics is the least interesting and least intelligent selection principle for an ideological forum. What meaning does a club offer when the only criteria for membership is the possession of two matching chromosomes?
Fondly,
Millicent
The Art of The Comment
May 23, 2009 by Carla Fran 3 Comments
Dear Millicent,
I have been thinking of your profile of Jezebel and its evolutions, and agree with the tensions you noted between taking things to task and supporting everybody. It is a problem when every viewpoint is humanized (though, isn’t that an accomplishment of empathy, or just a distracting use of pathos?), and echoed in pop critiques of women’s studies (whininess, black holes of offense and correction, righteousness that insists on the merits of heart and humanity but which cannot offer the same to the uninitiated).
I hear those critiques most often from people who have never gotten near women’s studies (full disclosure: I have never gotten near women’s studies). But the field, like feminism, is more vital than its critics give credit for: it’s not the grumpy wall flower as much as the exuberant and just misfit (for imagery here, I am thinking either of Ricki and Delia in My So Called Life at the World Happiness dance, or of Babs in The Way We Were, soused and dancing all night even though she was supposed to be working the refreshment table).
I also like your description of the commenting culture on Jez, and Gawker. I have to admit that I rarely read the comments, and often wonder why commenting is such an inherent part of blogging. The idea is sound–a large extended conversation, full of challenges and calls and answers–and I am giddy to read any comments we have here on this site. However, in general (and again, please do comment here, I am just a grump), comments seem to be a barage of self applause: commenters either offering inane agreeance, witty snarks, or complaints about their workplace. It seems that Facebook and Twitter have capitolized on this need for constant narration, and I want all comments to really just set up shop over there. There are times when I have read comments that have taken the conversation in other directions, or that have called shenanigans when appropriate, but I rarely consider commenters part of site. When reading Jezebel, I read their content alone, and consider the commenters in their own club, with queen bees who can type up a quick response and be instantly applauded. But then again, maybe I am just jealous because I am not one of them, and we all like applause.
Feministing has a community site as part of their blog, where commenters can post full blog entries. I like this model more than general comments, and often the editors post one of the community posts to the mainpage. One of the last comment sections I read diverged into a long scolding of a commenter for using the word “lame” to describe something they didn’t like. In the following 20 comments, there was an agressive defense and shuddering of the use of the word. It seemed both irritatingly petty (the old trials of PC language), and wildy effective. Though it annoyed me that one couldn’t relax about anything, even a slang adjective, while reading a blog, it was also the right fight. At its base, the word is inappropriate, and disrespectful. This reminded me of your discussion of the small choices where it is tempting to inclusively let all answers stand as correct (taking a husband’s last name, etc.), and the assertion that the choice (the answer, not just the right to choose) actually matters very much.
And, in a sweep back to the other side, my training as a doula totally disagrees, which makes things interesting. Doulas are supposed to support a woman’s choices in labor, and bring in no personal opinion besides offering information. The idea is that doulas are not there to make their version of an ideal birth, but to assist the mother in experiencing her ideal birth. I consider my work as a doula the most directly feminist thing I do. I help women have more power, voice and control at a vulnerable moment, and I get to see direct outcomes. This would suggest the original version– –that we are all snowflakes, and power comes from not denying anybody their snowflakehood. But, when it comes down to brass tacks, I only like this model when all the snowflakes are snowing for their own good as defined by, well, let’s be honest here, me.
So maybe the great work is not in defending the right to all viewpoints, but digging to the harder, more uncomfortable area of conversation that addresses responsibility? A hard task for Jezebel, because responsibility is never an effervescent topic. It makes me think of those horrid serious talks that parents only have with their kids while driving. And maybe that is where commenters come in. How much more palatable would a lecture on unloading the dishwasher have been if there was a chorus of wits making fun of the DJ on the radio, the claustrophobia of the seatbelt,while making sure that I did indeed absorb that the dishwasher needed to be unloaded by me, or else no ride to the mall.
Yours,
CF
Filed under BEST OF Millicent and Carla Fran, Uncategorized Tagged with a piece of the ladytalk pie, Barbra, commenters, doulas, feminism, feministing, Jez, ricki and delia, riding in cars with moms, the way we were, women's studies, world happiness dance