To Jackie Archived Message
Posted by margo on May 4, 2019, 12:30 pm, in reply to "Re: I thank both Walter & WV for their good faith and persistent efforts to raise awareness"
Hi Jackie, if you don't mind, I know your post wasn't addressed to me but I'd like to quickly address some of your points, because I'd like you to understand where I'm coming from as we've both posted here, for years: I regret the disruptions, acrimony and conflict between good people that have happened on the board over these issues. So do I. Those long, disruptive threads sometimes went way beyond respectful, good faith arguments. I tried to stay out of them or limit my word count. I stayed away from using demeaning labels. Ill-advisedly, I did get involved in one particular set of threads that contained 'disruption, acrimony etc'. These were the threads on 'identity politics', 'intersectionality', 'transgender' and 'feminism'. I'd encountered these topics on South Africa campuses: these were hot topics here in the developing/Third World south and they differed from views emanating from the richer north. I thought them worth sharing here. While some exchanges here were respectful and informative, on other occasions I felt misunderstood, misinterpreted and maligned. Some of this down to my own shortcomings, possibly ... but not all of it. I decided not to stay silent in the face of Walter/West Virginia/T'man but to stand up for my own lived experience. It wasn't a great experience, though, and I felt rather isolated/verbally attacked at one point. I believe many on the board didn't read the threads, seeing one huge, knotted mess they'd rather avoid. A very human response. One person who saw clearly what happened at that time is Derek and I was grateful for that. Wierdly, I felt I had been (to use that awful Americanism) 'mansplained' to by Walter, T'man and West Virginia who tended to explain to me what I *should* say on these matters and who I should or should not defend and what I should/should not say. I've not written about this in full before, because I don't want to portray myself as a victim: I'm not a victim. I admit I added to the entanglement by getting a quote (someone else's words) or a word wrong. But Walter would then repeatedly haul me over the rocks for these alleged transgressions - as well as for not standing up for certain things - day after day. The words became more acrimonious, with T'man sniping in capital letters ... and West Virginia saying directly to me: "I don't trust you", etcetera. At this late stage, I started to receive one or two PMs from concerned people here, saying they were somewhat shocked at the tones used. I decided to stop engaging with this trio. I would chalk most of the disruption and acrimony up to resistance against recognizing that such issues exist, and inability to ignore issues that one has no interest in. That's one part of the problem. It has to also be acknowledged that no one prevents people from sharing info here and also that no-one can force anyone else to participate or pay attention. Re your 'incredibly talented, hard-working, wonderful, highly educated professionals with great careers' .... maybe you're identifying a class aspect to the phenomenon. I agree - here we have the class aspect. But when I wanted to talked about class (in relation to feminism) on the threads to which I refer, I felt pushback and the phrases "marxist" and "class warrior" started to appear on the threads. What was that all about? I distinguished between classism and class analysis and still maintain that's an important division to note. I'm happy to tell you that there is no gender civil war. But many people, men and women, recognize that many women face barriers, challenges, and dangers for reasons arising from gender differences, and many of those men and women want to raise awareness of it and work to make things better. Couldn't agree more. It's gratifying to see that the BBC has announced it's appointed a gender-focused consultant to its team; it's gratifying to see how many pages the Guardian now generously devotes to gender, transgender, feminist and other identity politics issues. Media analysts would ponder why The Guardian is so big on some issues and so weak or disinformative on others. As you say, Jackie, barriers and dangers exist and these should be exposed. The problem - *here* in this small cyber space - arises when this (above) fact is held up as a stick to beat posters for not doing/being perfect enough in their focus on these issues. The alleged 'failures' and imperfections of anonymous, unknown posters here is used to insultingly smear the site - as a whole - as 'a cult'! I thought Shyaku described the atmosphere fairly well: viz: S - "The rather brooding tactic of trying to coerce, or browbeat people to either self-censor or support certain views (often unrelated to the general flow of discussion) on the basis of the anticipated unbearable heat of 'discreditation', ie that quotes from days, weeks, or even months ago will be dredged up repeatedly, taken out of context and twisted around" I eventually became nervous to engage with this subject because of the inevitable rows. To echo Shyaku's comment, if Walter returns at some point, I fear I'll never hear the end of what I've written here today ... or extractions and quotes from it. Thanks for listening, Jackie. M
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Message Thread: | This response ↓
- Curious: did anyone else receive a PM from Walter headed "Roundup"? [nm] - margo May 2, 2019, 3:11 pm
- Re: Curious: did anyone else receive a PM from Walter headed "Roundup"? [nm] - ceemac666 May 2, 2019, 3:47 pm
- Re: Curious: did anyone else receive a PM from Walter headed "Roundup"? [nm] - Poster123 May 2, 2019, 4:02 pm
- Yes....nm - Keith-264 May 2, 2019, 4:16 pm
- No, but I got one from Twirl just before he was shoved off the plank. And W emailed me. Can't stop - Rhisiart Gwilym May 2, 2019, 4:39 pm
- Yes, from Walter, but not "Roundup" - scrabb May 2, 2019, 6:35 pm
- No problem with anyone chatting to each other. Was merely curious [nm] - margo May 2, 2019, 7:42 pm
- Re: No problem with anyone chatting to each other. Was merely curious [nm] - dereklane May 2, 2019, 9:13 pm
- I did respond -- - scrabb May 2, 2019, 10:23 pm
- Thanks Scrabb - I'll borrow this because it more or less covers my position - dan May 2, 2019, 10:35 pm
- How the board is moderated, and by whom, isn't a personal petty squabble. Nor is banning. If it - Rhisiart Gwilym May 3, 2019, 6:44 am
- Re: How the board is moderated, and by whom, isn't a personal petty squabble. Nor is banning. If it - dereklane May 3, 2019, 7:35 am
- I'm not going either, D, because splitting this band of squabblers into two that are both too small - Rhisiart Gwilym May 3, 2019, 8:08 am
- Re: I'm not going either, D, because splitting this band of squabblers into two that are both too small - dovetailjoint May 3, 2019, 10:11 am
- Re: I'm not going either, D, because splitting this band of squabblers into two that are both too small - Si May 3, 2019, 11:40 am
- Hyperbole - no-one suggests a kind of gender civil war - but there are 500,000 - CJ May 3, 2019, 3:09 pm
- Re: I thank both Walter & WV for their good faith and persistent efforts to raise awareness - Jackie May 3, 2019, 5:17 pm
- To Jackie - margo May 4, 2019, 12:30 pm
- Re: I'm not going either, D, because splitting this band of squabblers into two that are both too small - dereklane May 3, 2019, 10:55 am
- Agreed. I'm happy with Lifeboat as "information hub"... - Ken Waldron May 3, 2019, 11:33 am
- Places where tactics work, and places where they don't .. - Shyaku May 3, 2019, 12:59 pm
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