I didn’t mean to imply that I had taken any heat for pointing that out. Really I would say quite the opposite. Much to your credit when the privilege shoe is on the other foot, the Harpies have the intellectual integrity to see and acknowledge it.

I do tend to think the lesser-privileged ought to dominate the discourse, if only because they’re the ones who usually tend to be closest to the source of oppression and they see it the most clearly. I don’t think I’m prevented from speaking about their oppression as a result of my privilege; but I am prevented, I think, generally, from claiming to be a greater authority on it than they are, and I am CERTAINLY prevented from telling them their anger at my privilege is unfair/undeserved/irrelevant. Anger at undeserved privilege, it seems to me, is the animating force of all progressive movements, and it out to continue to be such. IMHO!

However, the blog under discussion is not positioned as a personal blog. It was described by its founder as intended to be a “resource” for all. The “about” page contains the following sentence: “The goal was to pull together body image activists from all different perspectives and philosophies”. If that was the goal, the blog has clearly failed. It is not the case that those with the least privilege should necessarily *dominate* discourse, but they should be equally represented, especially when the discourse in question has an explicitly stated goal to do just that. (Indeed, I don’t think anyone said that underrepresented voices should dominate, but it’s interesting that you interpreted things that way.)

By not included those without white privilege, cis privilege, het privilege, etc., they are implicitly saying that white, cis, straight women represent “all different perspectives and philosophies”. Not only is that false, it is silencing.

Thx for the 411, I think I had trouble finding the term ’cause I was just looking for “cis.”

@Lauren
I have criticized the Harpies for the decidedly white-bread flavor of this blog.