Sometimes things make us uncomfortable

It happens to everyone, and sometimes we’re uncomfortable for good reason and sometimes not. So being uncomfortable because your privilege is being challenged is a good reason, being uncomfortable because some dude is saying sexually explicit things about you when he thinks you can’t hear bad reason. I meant this because I’m going to talk about #twitterfeminism, and people get real personal over it.

 

Meghan Murphy wrote a post entitled, “The trouble with twitter feminism,” and it read much like you’d expect. We’ve heard the arguments against online activism in the past. I kind of thought we were past it. Twitter is a specific kind of medium that makes it at times difficult to articulate complex points, but otherwise it enables people to engage with a variety of people and perspectives.

 

Murphy’s complaints and frustrations are normal and even honest, but online communities like Twitter enable some people have traditionally been silenced so when  someone writes something critical of this medium it very easily comes off as silencing. It is almost like a catch22: Twitter isn’t perfect, and Murphy’s experience is her’s and  it is valid, but Twitter has been an amazing medium for women of color to discuss and improve upon feminism . So just because it isn’t working for Murphy doesn’t mean there is no merit. Again, I’m not trying to beat up on Murphy, but because she wrote the piece I’m referring back to her. She also uses personal examples instead of examples from other people (she does use Gloria Steinem as an example), which makes this read more aggressive than I’d like.

 

I’ve pulled several quotes from Murphy’s work that I think speak to the key concepts while weeding out some of the personal examples, but do note as we’ll talk about tomorrow the personal is political.

“Most days I hate Twitter. And many days I think Twitter is a horrible place for feminism. While I would never argue that feminists stay off Twitter and do tend to believe it’s a necessary evil, of sorts, if you are in media/writing/journalism, I don’t think it’s a place for productive discourse or movement-building. I think it’s a place where intellectual laziness is encouraged, oversimplication is mandatory, posturing is de rigueur, and bullying is rewarded. I think it’s a place hateful people are draw toward to gleefully spread their hate, mostly without repercussion.”

Well, there is a lot there. I agree that one Twitter we have to be simple with our arguments, and for someone like me who spends a lot of time explaining the theory behind concepts, this act of simplification actually improves my ability to communicate. But that isn’t the case for everyone. Yes, bullying occurs, but we have to weigh the positives and the negatives. Does bullying not occur in academic journals or mean girls at conferences? I think a few bullies on Twitter is worth a diverse voice.

 

Murphy also notes that not all people use Twitter. Dismissing Twitter because some people don’t use it is about as productive as Twitter users dismissing all people not on Twitter. It is just shortsighted. It also sounds very much like being dismissed on Twitter because you can’t keep up with or counter all the negative statements. Twitter has been a wildly successful medium to organize as seen in Occupy and the international revolutions (though I will admit I’m much more versed in Occupy). Also, this post came days after the #notyourasiansidekick hashtag, seems really out of touch with intersectional feminism.

 

Murphy makes some good points in her post as well about compassion, which will come a little later, first I want to address her two points for why Twitter feminism is flawed.

“For these reason, I see the trouble with Twitter feminism as two-fold:

“1. It is not at all representative of the feminist movement and the actual beliefs of and work done by feminists around the world.

“2. It is a, generally, toxic and unproductive place for feminism and movement-building.”

The second reason is just false, because if has been effective in movement building see Occupy, revolutions, and Trayvon Martin. Yes, hashtag and profile picture activism occurs. Yes, people spread bad ideas like wildfire (“I am Trayvon Martin” used by white people; just no, bad white people). But I also appreciate there are flaws with Twitter activism, and as a community we have to commit not just to online organizing, but to organize in person as well and when called on. Twitter has done a lot for solidarity, particularly across social and cultural lines, which brings me to the big wrong in Murphy’s piece:

“Twitter is not representative. But we seem to believe it is. Twitter tends to amplify certain perspectives and voices and erase others—either because they aren’t there or because they’re too scared to speak up, lest they become the next target. Thinking about who is on Twitter and whose voices are the loudest on Twitter is worthwhile. Are poor women on Twitter? Are people who are busy working on Twitter? Are people who are sick of being harassed and bullied and attacked on Twitter participating in the conversations? Who’s there? Who feels safe to speak there? I’m preeetty positive that marginalized women living and struggling on the Downtown Eastside aren’t all up on #SexWork Twitter everyday, for example.

“Simple because you see a perspective shared widely on the medium, doesn’t mean it’s representative. And it doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Anyone want to guess why I flagged this? Come one, I already hinted. Academic feminism, “real feminism,” feminism on the street in the real world, whose voices are heard there? White people, sometimes even white men, which is fine, they are all aloud an opinion, but they silence, sometimes actively silence other perspectives. Poor people are on Twitter, trust me. Sex workers are on Twitter, and people  who work all the time are on Twitter. See any group of people Murphy doesn’t point out as missing? People of color, trans people, and other very marginalized people. This is particularly disconcerting because Murphy invokes the language of silencing, of herself, which is to say a medium where marginalized people get to share their voices silenced the white woman. No, pretty sure Murphy and her website will survive some angry Twitter followers.

 

Sometimes people make generalizations about white women on Twitter, and I get uncomfortable. I think “hey, I don’t do that thing they are attributing to people like me” (this will be important for tomorrow’s post to reader). Then I remember, they aren’t talking about me; they are talking about privilege and people with it. White women feminism is flawed. I know it; you know it; and Twitter definitely knows it.

 

Don’t get me wrong, someone I greatly respect took something I said on Twitter out of context, well he didn’t have all the context. I tweeting a video of his, days after he posted it. I delayed my promotion of the video because some of the things he said about feminism and women were things I don’t agree with, they were a simplification. I promoted the video because the MRAs came running, and I felt that even if I don’t agree with everything in the video he deserved my support. I was mortified. It even became part of a segment on his podcast. Mortified I say.

 

So I know this reference was about me. But most things people say on Twitter about people like me isn’t about me. These aren’t stereotypes or wrong either, white people have privilege, and we use it. We can’t get rid of it. Society isn’t ready for that, but we can use it to the advantage of other people. This statement leads me to believe that Murphy feels like her voice isn’t being heard, and maybe it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that the voices on Twitter shouldn’t be.

 

But I want to end with the positive, see Murphy makes very good points about compassion. Which falls next to poverty in the ever changing list of my jam.

 

Murphy notes Ngoc Loan Tran’s  article on “calling in” and out. It was an excellent piece, read it now. I’ll wait. Murphy says,

“But, for the most part, I haven’t found Twitter to be a positive experience. And I’m not just talking about harassment from misogynists. I’m talking about the internal shit. The mean girls-style popularity contest so many of those on feminist Twitter engage in. The take-downs, the bullying, the mocking, the defamation, the snide remarks, and the absolute endless stream of hate.”

Drawing on Tran’s points about punishing people without having a way to reconcile the hurt and that this might be done out of fear of being the next to be ostracized . I would say that Murphy’s concerns about these perceived popularity contests is a legitimate concern. As a community we need to discuss and figure out a way past tearing each other down to build ourselves up. We also have to acknowledge this isn’t specific to Murphy or feminist Twitter. It is a larger cultural problem, which we know because we do it to celebrities, isn’t there a countdown to see when public opinion turns on Jennifer Lawrence?

Murphy makes two points about compassion that I think are worth a read: “We are made to care more about appearances than compassion, and more about winning than understanding.”

This is the conversation about Twitter and the Internet in general we should be having. She concludes her post with a discussion of considering the humanity of the people we engage with online, which I consider compassion. I completely agree with her that we should consider the impact of our words and actions. But I would urge Murphy to consider her words and actions. People who are routinely silenced might feel like their struggle is being dismissed when a person of privilege get a large platform to talk about how she is silenced.