Privilege, Context, Etc.

[tablesaw]

With the rage gone and the sleep (mostly) back and my humors rebalanced, I want to add some more stuff about what is now being called "The Public-Domain Breast Project." Specifically, I'd like to point out a lot of other excellent responses that I haven't yet had the time or energy to highlight while I was wrapped up with my own battle.

What I took on was a close reading of the story that was presented. The sentence that turned me into a rage ball was this one:

Defaulting to a male-dominated group may be an assumption that's societally-valid, but I find that equally troubling that people would go, "Hmm. He talks about a group, so it must be guys." I wouldn't have assumed that at all.

And I spent the rest of the day going, "Here, here, here, in what you wrote, this is why we are assuming those things."

I was talking about how things were presented; my own straight male privilege made it harder for me to see a lot of the other context issues, the ones that explain why this was a bad idea generally. So I want to showcase those issues here. Hopefully it's obvious that the comments to these posts have lots of good information too:

• First off, after putting up with me all of yesterday, ojouchan had her own say this morning, which talks about the way internet culture, con culture, and geek culture mix into a smoothie of badness. She also explains why, as I had mentioned before, she cried reading the theferrett's post.
  
• ithiliana has still more con stuff, and links the attitude to Harlan Ellison groping Connie Willis during the Hugo Awards two years ago.
  
• mswyrr has a whole lot of amazing stuff in the comments to the original post, especially in this thread, and most especially in this post which has so many people agreeing with it that LJ doesn't even want to show them all.
  
• springheel_jack also talks about con/geek culture and has good words about libertarian ideals that don't acknowledge preexisting power imbalances.
  
• coffeeandink debunks the argument that opposing the project means that men should be ashamed of their sexuality.
  
• In the spirit of the open-source movement, others have offered derived works based on the original source code:
  • hahathor presents The Open-Source Knuckle Sandwich Project.
    
  • misia presents The Open-Source Swift Kick to the Balls Project.
• the_red_shoes is mostly collecting links in her main post, but since I used it to find a lot of the links in this entry here, I want to give the massive credit where it's due. (Also, it has hundreds of comments.)
  
• kate_nepveu's response is short and cogent and it features the exiled gay prince of Farlandia.

And there's an odd bit of synchronicity in that last one. Kate_Nepveu mentions "OH JOHN RINGO NO," and then The_Red_Shoes links to it. And it's weird because the evening before Theferrett's post, I'd just been reading American Women! You Are Not Inadequate! Really! by maga_dogg which uses the same reference. This is also a skewering of straight male privilege from a man, and it probably primed the pump for my own words the following day.

Now, getting ready for work. And when I have some spare moments, I'll get a chance to actually spend some time exploreing the journals at all of the people who've started reading this one.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Heee, kate_nepveu inspired me, actually. It was said probably mostly in jest and I, being That Person, was all "Exit stage left!"

....I don't really think I can adequately express my gratitude to you for writing that in-depth analysis, which I didn't even see because it was buried (back before stuff got REALLY buried) in the comments, until the_xtina pointed it out. I think it really changed the tenor of that discussion, and gave me a lot of hope and strength to get through the day. So -- thanks.

[prettyh.livejournal.com]

I'm among the many who've added you after reading your marvelous comments in response to this whole debacle; hope that's okay. :)

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

So am I!

[sargent.livejournal.com]

I'm finding OH JOHN RINGO NO to be useful shorthand for "this is incredibly skeevy and wrong."

[kate_nepveu]

I didn't get around to saying that your comments were awesome before comments were frozen over there, so: awesome. Thank you.

(I think your coffeeandink link is broken, though.)

[tablesaw]

Fixed it. Thanks for your own words, as well.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_tallian_/]

I just linked to your post here in my little response to the debacle. Extremely well-thought, especially since you were drunk on rage and lack of sleep when you responded to theferret.

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1087686.html?thread=54717382#t54717382

Thank you for that, there. I am trying to go around thanking all the women who vocalized, so well and intelligently, all of my own issues with that moron's post yesterday. I appreciate the time you took and the thought. Even if it bounces off of him like a rubber ball, it still has great worth to me and to other women who read what you said.

Thanks!

Re: Privilege, Context, Etc.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i want to thank you especially for your detailed analysis of why theferrett's original post was dripping with male het privilege; i read it the same way you did, and was going to articulate it for one of the women participating in the OSBP who didn't get why i thought that way -- and now i am saved from going over it with a fine-toothed comb, which frankly, i wasn't looking forward to at all.

i'm also friending you because i'm in a friending frenzy, kind of a thing to counteract the voices of idiocy with voices of insight -- there's no need to reciprocate if you don't want to, i have no ego tied up in LJ friending. if there's anything good about this debacle it's how many people i've discovered on LJ who made penetrating and sharp comments that struck to the heart of the matter.

[smonsterbite.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm friending you as well. Your comments and posts on the PDBP/OSBP + linguistic geekiness was too much to be denied.

Really I'm commenting to ask... have you seen one of those saws from your default icon demo'd in real life? It is LOUD AS SHIT when the blade drops. Loud enough that if I were in the area working with another tool, I might startle and hurt myself. Pretty cool, though.

Proud of you

[(Anonymous)]

As your mom, I know you know I am proud of you, but at certain times it is more important to say so out loud, and your writing on this issue is one of those times. KD

Re: Proud of you

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Ack! I know I'm a total creepy Internet stranger, but I just want to hug you now. (I think I'll go hug my mom in proxy.)

[duskman.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Just wanted to thank you for being a stand-up kind of guy.

This world needs more voices like yours.