Me blogging at my in-laws kitchen table (December 2011)
Today, I thought I’d put together a “suggested reading” list out of the stuff that’s caught my interest lately from around the Internets.
I used to put together links lists on a weekly basis over at the feminist librarian, and actually had lots of fun doing so — but they’re surprisingly time-consuming to compile. Then Tumblr came along, and I realized that micro-blogging was a pretty great format for sharing links and snippets of online content. So that’s where I send most short-form links these days (people who care to stalk my reading habits online can check it out at the link above). But! This week I thought I’d provide you with some linky goodness the old-fashioned way.
Gwendolyn @ Feministing | The Scholarly Feminist: Archiving with Kate Eichhorn. Feministing is launching a new bi-weekly column “The Scholarly Feminist,” and its first installment is an interview with Kate Eichhorn about archives! As a librarian who works with archival material, I’m totally excited to see feminist and queer archives get this sort of attention.
Danika @ The Lesbrary interviews author Emma Donoghue.
Amanda Marcotte @ The Good Man Project | As Equals and as Friends. Marcotte challenges GMP founder and editor Tom Matlack to re-examine his assumptions about oppositional gender essentialism.
Clarisse Thorn & Hugo Schwyzer @ Role/Reboot | On Sex, Drugs, and Feminism (two parts). Thorn interviews Schwyzer about his experience in sexual relationships and his views on gender, sexuality, and feminism.
Sierra @ No Longer Quivering | Daughter of the Patriarchy: Admissions. NLQ is a blog for girls and women who have left the Quiverfull movement (a movement within fundamentalist Christianity). In this post, Sierra writes about the bravery it took to apply for college and admit her academic aspirations.
Anne @ New Porn by Women | “child porn”?!: hide any picture of your naked child!. Anne G. Sabo (aka “Quizzical Mama“) considers how our moral panic around children, nudity, and sexuality has created a climate in which nakedness = sexuality = exploitation.
echidna @ ECHIDNA of the Snakes | The Bald Vulva. Echidna decontructs a recent article in The Atlantic that ignores the complex social currents and pressures that might lead women to shave their tender bits.
Jennifer P. @ Captain Awkward | Derailing: How Not to Talk to People Who Are Telling You Something Sad. (via my friend Lola). Jennifer analyzes the dynamics of internet conversations that turn someone’s painful experience into a discussion all about the person who’s reading the post:
At the root of [derailing and victim blaming] is a kind of wounded narcissism. Someone who points out our privilege or frankly discusses their own pain at the hands of a system that is benefitting us reminds us that we are not perfect, that things are not perfect, and that we are vulnerable to having the same thing happen to us and perhaps complicit in what is happening to them. When we derail or blame victims, we’re taking the pain of other people and making it something that is happening to us.
Jennifer Ludden @ NPR | To Keep Marriage Healthy When Baby Comes, Share Housework. What’s ”no duh” common sense to many of us is confirmed in a new research project out of the University of Virginia in which over 2,800 couples were surveyed about the health of their relationships.
Susie Bright @ Susie Bright’s Journal | Andrea Dworkin Has Died (11 April 2005). (via Feministe). I’m in the middle of reading a collection of essays by Gayle S. Rubin (review forthcoming) in which she talks a lot about the feminist “porn wars” of the 1980s. Bright’s compassionate reflections on Dworkin’s influence are a really interesting meditation on how difficult it can be for us to bridge differences around issues so intimately personal as sexuality.
Consider this an open thread to post what you’ve been reading/writing below …
What I don’t get about Hugo Schwyzer is how he calls himself a feminist when he brags about fucking his students and attempting to murder his ex-girlfriend when she came to him after her rape: http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2011/01/03/what-you-need-to-remember-what-you-need-to-forget-on-self-acceptance-after-doing-something-truly-awful/
@Becca, Thanks for sharing that powerful post. I understand where you’re coming from, but I read Schwyzer’s autobiographical pieces and discussion of his past differently from you. He seems pretty consistently clear about what he did in the past NOT being okay, and something he will never be able to revise in a way that would make it okay. Whenever he talks about having sexual relationships with his students, he frames this as not-okay. Similarly, I see that firm framing in this piece you shared about his ex-girlfriend. He is honest about his alcohol and drug abuse, but doesn’t attempt to absolve himself of his actions by saying “I was drunk and high.” I don’t read the piece as “bragging” about what he did.
Wow, Anna, wtf?! He checked with his lawyer buddies before he posted that to be sure there’d be no REAL consequences to his actions. He compared fucking his ex just after a drug dealer had raped her to a friend accidentally letting a dog out. And it’s all about HIM, how baaaaaad he felt about everything! How dare her “prominent and powerful” parents still hold a grudge!
You could at least put up a trigger warning on that goddamn thing. Because I know I was triggered as hell reading a. a sexual predator and b. a near-murderer lauded as a “feminist,” then seeing everyone who objected to it being silenced and threatened with banning.
I read the whole thing on GMP and honestly, I was totally mystified by Matlack’s responses on twitter. It read to me like the guy had a total freak out but maybe I’m biased. What really got me was his reaction to (Sarah?) telling him that his “women’s suspicion of men = white people’s suspicion of PoC” metaphor was inappropriate. How did you read it, Anna?
@anon … I am not in the business of defending Schwyzer’s past actions, or the way he frames them. I am not that personally invested in his character, frankly. I’ve been following his online writing for a few years now and sometimes like what he has to say, and sometimes disagree with him (Clarisse Thorn makes a similar observation in her introduction to the interview). I thought the interview with Thorn made for a interesting read.
I absolutely agree with you (and others here) that his past actions are inexcusable. I read his re-telling of those stories in a different way than you, but I come to them with my own specific lens and I realize there are other ways to understand what he writes. It’s totally your prerogative to avoid reading his work and/or to articulate the ways in which you see him justifying his past actions.
It’s not really my practice to use trigger warnings on links, unless I’m passing along a trigger warning the post author attached to the original post.
@baraqiel … yeah, I read the Twitter conversation posted at GMP as well, and had a similar response. While I found the original column unoriginal and lazy (generalizing in a gender-essentialist way, as so many others had pointed out), I feel like Matlack only dug himself into a deeper hole as he got increasingly defensive about his original piece. It was one of those times when instead of just not responding to his critics in the moment, or acknowledging their critique, he was immediately “omg I’m being yelled at!” and never really recovered from that to engage in a more adult conversation about the challenges to his thesis.
Excellent post, Anna. I know it’s old school, but I love me a good ol’ link round-up. Thanks for taking the time!
@krismcn why thank you! perhaps I’ll consider reviving the tradition in the new year
…
@annajcook – thanks for the link roundup.. there were some links to blogs I used to read and hadn’t read in a while, so it was great going back.