Daniel Tosh, Laci Green, and Tumblr Justice

(TW for rape, bullying, harassment)

I'm skipping the usual Friday link dump in light of the goings on in the Tumblr world regarding comedian Daniel Tosh's rape jokes (which I touched on briefly yesterday), and the threats made against blogger Laci Green. Jezebel has a more comprehensive post on the latter, and while I appreciate a rational take on what I'd known only through a handful of disjointed Tumblr reblogs, one thing that bothers me placing the onus on Tumblr's social justice blogosphere. Or even the notion that Tumblr's SJ blog world is some sort of cohesive whole. It isn't.

What happened to Laci was awful. No one deserves to feel threatened or bullied online. Irrespective of one's privilege, one's status, or one's popularity, it's a crappy thing to have to deal with. I don't know the entire story, but what's being reglogged (and I'm oversimplifying for the sake of this post -- the rest can be read here ) is that she used a transphobic slur, was called out on it, and apologized. The ironic Is This Feminist? even slyly referenced it:

This woman is apologizing for using an offensive word in her youth. IS THIS FEMINIST? 

Absolutely not. Real feminists come out of the womb quoting bell hooks, and come complete with a force field that keeps them from absorbing negative cultural ideas. Indeed, feminist theory and analysis are irrelevant to personal growth because real feminists are born perfectly politically correct and never need to learn and grow. We just write those analyses for fun; they certainly aren’t there to educate. Everyone should always be treated like who they were at their worst moment. PROBLEMATIC.

For anyone who's spent even a modicum of their daily lives in the feminist blog world, it's a familiar story. I even have my one game plan for when it happens. When, not if: acknowledge, apologize, and learn from it. Here's the key, though your apology does not have to be accepted. In face, there's a good chance it won't. Forgiveness is so ingrained into society that it's become common knowledge that a apology makes things all better. Sometimes it doesn't. And it's not required that you forgive everyone who has hurt you. Granted, receiving death threats is cause for serious alarm, and no one should be made to feel unsafe online or off. It's ludicrous that we still need to have this conversation.

I guess what I find disconcerting is that this is being framed as a Tumblr problem or a SJ blogosphere problem, when in reality anyone on Tumblr can call themselves a social justice blogger or be pigeonholed as one for writing polemic things. Most of the bloggers committed to change are doing a world of good as it did just days ago with the outcry over Daniel Tosh's remarks that  it would be funny if the audience member and blogger who called him on his rape jokes" got raped by five guys right now." What started with a network of Tumblr blogs found its way to larger sites like CNN and the Huffington Post, which is great for visibility.

The Social Justice Blogosphere and Faux-pression

Though Catalog's article on the phenomenon of imaginary oppression is a good one, but could use some clarification.

Like a handful of the commenters, I don't think demi- and asexuality should be part of the equation.

“Demisexuality” is part of the “asexual” grouping. I’d tell you what it means, but demisexual people are confused about it too (and you’ll find about 100 conflicting definitions out there), so I’ll give my understanding. Demisexuality is when people only feel sexual desire for those whose personality they like, or to whom they are emotionally attracted. In other words, they make up most of the population. But they’re very oppressed, if you ask some of them. Oppressed how, exactly? No one knows, but you can’t expect them to provide any evidence. That would be wrong.

I'm not that active in Tumblr's SJ blogging community, but most of what I've read that's been written by those who identify as demisexual or asexual stresses how not oppressed they are, at least compared to their more identifiably queer counterparts. Also, some members of the asexual community identify as queer or hetero in addition to being asexual. The definition of demisexuality given here is pretty reductive. AVEN's Wiki page says, "According to one hypothetical model, a person who identifies as a demisexual does not experience primary sexual attraction but does experience secondary sexual attraction. In this model, primary sexual attraction is based on outward qualities such as a person's looks, clothes, or personality while secondary sexual attraction is attraction stemming from a connection, usually romantic, or from status or how closely the person is in relationship to the other."

As for those identifying as "transethnic" and "transablebed," eh... I'm pretty sure you'll get no sympathy from people who've experience actual racism or ableism. I'm reminded what Riki Wilchins  said about gender being understood as more unstable and incontestable than race: "deconstructing gender [and sexuality] is accepted in a way that deconstructing race is not."

Heels and Ideology: Being Feminine, and a Feminist

Melissa over at Shakesville wrote a fantastic post about the ways in which feminists police femininity in other women. I urge anyone with even a passing interest in feminist theory to read it in its entirety, as well as the discussion that followed, but here's a short excerpt:

Many years ago, I rejected certain expressions of traditional femininity because I was a misogynist, raised in a misogynist culture to hate women (including myself). I was socialized to have axiomatic contempt for the feminine and all its associations with weakness and frivolity and being less than. […] Then I was exposed to proper feminist theory for the first time—and suddenly I started REALLY LIKING being a woman, and other women, and all things feminine, in a way I had never liked any of those things before. It made me voraciously desirous of feminine things, many of which I’d always liked, deep down, but had rejected, shoving my affections to dark vaults at the bottom of my psychological sea. There they could be forgotten, or at least denied.

Pardon me if this is a little disjointed. I've been trying to think of a way to respond or add to this for the past few days, and nothing seems quite right. Full disclosure: I don't "perform femininity" in a lot of traditional ways, so I'd be lying if I said it doesn't sting just a little to hear that the persona you've crafted over the last few decades is largely a product of a lot of internalized misogyny. I'm a guy's girl. But I'm a guy's girl who knows what that means. (I've also been a guy's girl among a lot of really great guys whom I'd call feminists, too, but I'm lucky in that respect.) I don't do a lot of "stereotypically "feminine" things, and it's not that easy to determined whether it's because of society's devaluation of anything associated with women, or that I'd naturally gravitate to things that are the antithesis of pink and frilly. That last part is what gives me pause. Not doing the "girly" thing is okay, too, and I think there are other factors involved than just internalized misogyny. (Money, for one. Performing femininity is pretty damn expensive. And culturally, someone might have different expectations of what is feminine.) I think a greater problem than, say, questioning one's dedication to feminism for wearing heels is the chronic debasement of art, music, or books made by women.

I wish I could remember where I saw this, but recently I read a quote that went something like "Is changing a tire a man's thing? Well, are you a women changing tire? Then it's a woman's thing." (That's not even close to the original, but you get my drift.) I've read a lot lately about how we are reconciling our love for girly things with our feminist ideals, and while no one should tell you how to be a feminist, I can't help but think that, taken too far, it can read a little "my feminism is more evolved than yours." Which is just as bad as telling someone she's a bad feminist for shaving her legs.

On Blogging and Intellectual Property

Despite being a blogger, in some capacity, for more than five years now, I don't think a lot about "intellectual property." I link to my sources and credit other bloggers whose content influenced my own. I know ideas don't develop in a vacuum, and many times within blogging circles, you'll see many posts on a similar topic. There have been times, however, when I'll opt out of publishing a post I've already drafted because if I see that a more senior blogger has written a similar post.

I bring this up because something like this happened between two bloggers I follow on Tumblr. I'm curious what other writers do in this situation: would you confront someone if you thought she was "stealing your ideas" (a dubious claim by itself), but no evidence of actual plagiarism? I'm not a lawyer, and I have close to zero clout in the blogosphere, so usually I let something slide even when it feels a little iffy. I'm not a lawyer, so I often don't know whose side the law falls on, though I do know of one case where a blogger who had trademarked the title of her blog slapped another blogger with a cease and desist order because her title was too similar. The key is the first blogger had trademarked her blog title, effectively "branding" herself and her content. Even when there is no legal recourse, there are the obvious bad feelings and the sting of betrayal in close-nit online circles.