I spend a lot of time criticizing the feminist blogosphere. Sometimes I spend more time criticizing the feminist blogosphere than actually participating it it (I know this is hypocritical, and becoming more active is something I'm working on), but I'm a big believer in accountability. It's especially important to hold those whose influence large and wide-reaching accountable for what they write online. This is why I'm more than okay with sites like STFU Jezzies and Fuck No Jezebel. Both do a good job criticizing the overall tenor of the site, which includes the commenters as well as the editors. Some may think sites that exist solely for the purpose of pointing out the failures of others veer a little too closely to mean girl territory, but it's not personal, and it's usually limited to the things said on Jezebel. This is healthy. Criticizing something from the inside out is a great way to actually make change happen. What I cannot advocate is shaming.
Shaming is personal. Shaming is damaging someone's reputation simply because "she's annoying or demands too much attention." Shaming is not allowing someone to grow after she's made a mistake and owned up to it. Shaming is 21st century equivalent of staring an "I hate (person) club" like something you'd read in a Judy Blume novel. Unfortunately, I see a lot of it in online circles, too. The site linked in the third paragraph here makes me extremely uncomfortable. Don't even get me started on calling someone a "bad feminist." What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway?
If I sound like I speak from experience, it's because I do. For years I had an "online nemesis," and while it was a series of mild attacks only, it was personal, it had nothing to do with anything I'd said or done, but that person's perception of my online persona. I thought long and hard about what could have said or done that may this person took offense to: I raked through every one of my posts. I would have been fine with direct confrontation, but there was none. I know I make plenty of mistakes -- and I'm willing to own up to them. But there is a line between accountability and bullying, and all too often it gets a little blurry.
Addendum:
ReplyDeleteI drafted this before another dust-up in ladyblog world, which I'm linking to because I have no say in it whatsoever. It wasn't the inspiration for this.
I risked committing the cardinal sin of "making it about me when it's not about me." I thought long and hard about including that personal anecdote, but that one incident (and it went on for three or four years), largely informed how I interact online, and since then I've become increasingly careful about what I say almost to the point of silencing myself.