Friday, December 14, 2012

A Friday Cathartic Read

Sure, this message from Kate Harding to MRAs isn't the most.... "bridge-building."

However, my observation from my years as an Internet Feminist is that some people simply cannot handle a feminist gal speaking up about Problematic Gender Stuff regardless of whether she's saying a loud "fuck you" or uttering a tepid, "Hey, um... I don't think anyone here is necessarily sexist or anything heh heh heh, or like, being intentionally problematic... but... can we maybe have a conversation about that thing you just said?"

The latter tone is so often interpreted as the former, and we often learn through experience just how many people prioritize remaining entrenched in their unexamined privileges and biases over engaging them with an open mind.

Which, perhaps, speaks to a growing concern of mine that maybe it's better not to build bridges (let alone cross them) when bullies, whose capacity to be offensive is exceeded only by their capacity to become offended at being called out for it, are on the other side.

A snippet:
"By and large, American feminists are really into equality, involved fathers, justice for all, dismantling bullshit gender roles, and helping folks leave dangerous relationships. We would be the natural allies of MRAs, if MRAs were sincerely committed to the causes with which they claim to be chiefly concerned. But no, today's MRAs—unlike the 1970s movement that earnestly sought to free men, alongside women, from the constraints of gender stereotypes, or the 1980s branch that involved a lot of drum circles and crap poetry—are chiefly concerned with one thing, and one thing only: Putting feminists in their place."
Yep.

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