Saturday, May 19, 2012

What's problematic about "problematic?"

Like any good ostensibly feminist blogger, I'm currently obsessed with the site "Is This Feminist?"  (Feministe and Jezebel deserve co-credit for leading me to it.) Here's an example:
"This woman is doing science. IS THIS FEMINIST? 
'Science,' as a narrative of knowledge, prizes a phallocentric adherence to logic and mastery, breaking things down into discrete parts and seeking to name and control their interactions, rather than viewing them as an intuitively connected, interdisciplinary, feminine whole. This woman is adopting and reinforcing a masculine-supremacist view of intelligence which encourages women to rely on externally defined “facts” and academic credentials, rather than heeding their own inner wisdom. A true feminist simply knows the cure for Alzheimer’s disease, possibly because it’s yoga. PROBLEMATIC."
And this one, which I laughed out loud at, as I recently wrote that if I removed everything from my Ipod that was at all ideologically imperfect, I'd be left with nothing but one Le Tigre song, and even that's debatable. Damn.
"This woman is dancing in a club. IS THIS FEMINIST? 
What is she dancing to? Are the lyrics sexist? Does this sexy tune exclude the experiences of asexuals? Dancing to Le Tigre may not be enough. One of them is married to a guy who used to have sexist lyrics in his music, which makes their beats triggering for some. PROBLEMATIC. "
If you've spent any time in the feminist blog world, or Tumblr's Social Justice blogging circle, you're probably rolling your eyes at the giant, all caps, "PROBLEMATIC." This word is the bane of my online existence, and I use it too often myself. Everything that's not ideologically perfect is, or has the potential to be, PROBLEMATIC. Ideally, I don't have an issue with calling out those things, but when problematic is nothing but a placeholder for something else -- bigotry, homophobia, etc. -- shouldn't those words should be used instead?

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