False Idols and Integrity

[korinna]

This was co-written by me and seluecus, a queer MoC.The cross-section between geeks and those interested in social justice is large on Livejournal, and certain voices are considered particularly important re: their opinions on the relationship between geek culture and anti-oppression ideologies

Comments

[arr_ess_on_lj]

Your last two paragraphs are spot-on. Thanks for writing this - excellent post.

[aphephobia]

I wasn't aware of it either.

speaking generally though, SJ circles are very cliquey and often populated with a lot of people who do it for the I HAZ SOCIAL JUSTICE GIVE ME COOKIES NOW factor.

That's been my experience, too.

[aphephobia]

All too often I've seen points that Neo and others have made be set aside because someone's decided to argue about language or something else which doesn't actually have anything to do with the point being argued, though

[seiberwing]

And have you read the actual post? We're not setting aside his points. You're a slasher, you know that there's fetishization going on there, we're not denying it. But the tremendous misogyny, the blanket statements of gay men, and the erasing of queer women and POC in the discussion are what we're objecting to and that's not just 'language'.

[aphephobia]

I didn't see any blanket statements, and I do recall him stating in the "How To Slash Better" post that he was NOT claiming to be speaking for everyone, and that he was speaking from his own experience. He also stated that men come in all types, and named some of these types. The thing is, in slashfic, all too often a lot of this diversity is erased and writers do perpetuate misogyny by using the same crappy tropes and gender roles the mainstream writers and media-makers use.

As for the misogyny, the way I saw what he was saying was that he was complaining about women who were acting like, well, creeps. Why single out women? Because they're the ones doing it.

I'll be the first to admit I've seen some horrendous writing from guys, too, (Google "g0ys" and you'll see what I mean... or don't and save the desire to headdesk.)

I honestly didn't see what was in the deleted comments (I didn't even know there were deleted comments until they were mentioned; I read it fairly early on) so I can't say who they're from.

[calixti]

This is an amazing post. I've noticed it too, and how people will automatically defend certain SJ bloggers no matter how outlandish, ridiculous, hurtful, or oppressive what they write is--but if you criticise it or call them out, their fans will all turn on you. :/

I know it's bad, but thinking about people's fans turning against me terrifies me enough that I'll avoid speaking altogether. And that, um, is not something that should be happening in SJ communities, is it?

[tula_peiwa]

I'm in the same boat. I've seen bloggers I used to respect say really problematic things and bitten my tongue, because no one else was saying anything, so I was probably wrong, right? Or out of a fear of being jumped on, even when I knew I wasn't wrong.

I like your icon, btw.

[kellicat]

Social Justice

[booksforlunch]

Social justice, I think.