I agree with the assessments here on the tones of the groups.
I was added to the main one and it was pretty much solely personal story sharing and was way too active and overwhelming. I didn't leave the group, but I unfollowed. Not interesting/impactful enough to allow it to take over my feed, thank you very much.
But our local group is really good.
In her dubious defense on one level of it, it was never *intended* to be an activist group. She never put up any pretenses there. It started as a small, safe friends group. It really really snowballed really really fast.
But while I admit I haven't read up on it super deeply, it sounds gross that she started under the "secret" thing and is now making it front-line public. It is gross if she's policing the name. And mostly gross if she's silencing marginalized voices. And even if activism wasn't the original intention unless you voluntarily pass the baton, if something grows under you, you hold some responsibility to "listen" to your community.
It kind of reminds me of the notorius Feminist Breeder debacle. Started small-scale and said some interesting and intelligent things and also some problematic things but there was some good stuff in there. Then started profiteering in weird ways and coming more and more unhinged. Melted down, and deleted the entire Facebook community. Do what you need to do, but there were 25,000 followers who *hadn't* gone batshit (for the most part). Let them communicate and change platforms, at least!
Now all this is making me wonder if we judge women more harshly for this stuff than men, but even so, it doesn't mean criticism isn't warranted (kind of like with Clinton overall).
I was added to the main one and it was pretty much solely personal story sharing and was way too active and overwhelming. I didn't leave the group, but I unfollowed. Not interesting/impactful enough to allow it to take over my feed, thank you very much.
But our local group is really good.
In her dubious defense on one level of it, it was never *intended* to be an activist group. She never put up any pretenses there. It started as a small, safe friends group. It really really snowballed really really fast.
But while I admit I haven't read up on it super deeply, it sounds gross that she started under the "secret" thing and is now making it front-line public. It is gross if she's policing the name. And mostly gross if she's silencing marginalized voices. And even if activism wasn't the original intention unless you voluntarily pass the baton, if something grows under you, you hold some responsibility to "listen" to your community.
It kind of reminds me of the notorius Feminist Breeder debacle. Started small-scale and said some interesting and intelligent things and also some problematic things but there was some good stuff in there. Then started profiteering in weird ways and coming more and more unhinged. Melted down, and deleted the entire Facebook community. Do what you need to do, but there were 25,000 followers who *hadn't* gone batshit (for the most part). Let them communicate and change platforms, at least!
Now all this is making me wonder if we judge women more harshly for this stuff than men, but even so, it doesn't mean criticism isn't warranted (kind of like with Clinton overall).
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