Online Communities, Not

Michelle Goldberg, "Feminism's Toxic Twitter Wars" at The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/article/178140/feminisms-toxic-twitter-wars

I have become increasingly skeptical of the benefits of online "communities" devoted to particular issues or interests, and this funny-terrifying article cements that skepticism. I like the commenter who speaks of vicious infighting among people who actually have no effect on anything. Carry on folks, for all the difference it makes! (A good rule of thumb is, if you find yourself in a situation that could be so described - depart.)

Some revealing quotations from the article:

“I fear being cast suddenly as one of the ‘bad guys’ for being insufficiently radical, too nuanced or too forgiving, or for simply writing something whose offensive dimensions would be unknown to me at the time of publication,” [Katherine Cross] wrote.
***
...there’s a norm that intention doesn’t matter—indeed, if you offend someone and then try to explain that you were misunderstood, this is seen as compounding the original injury. Again, there’s a significant insight here: people often behave in bigoted ways without meaning to, and their benign intention doesn’t make the prejudice less painful for those subjected to it. However, “that became a rule where you say intentions never matter; there is no added value to understanding the intentions of the speaker,” Cross says.
***
...the expectation that feminists should always be ready to berate themselves for even the most minor transgressions...creates an environment of perpetual psychodrama, particularly when coupled with the refusal to ever question the expression of an oppressed person’s anger.
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In a revolution-eats-its-own irony, some online feminists have even deemed the word “vagina” problematic. In January, the actress and activist Martha Plimpton tweeted about a benefit for Texas abortion funds called “A Night of a Thousand Vaginas,” sponsored by A Is For, a reproductive rights organization she’s involved with. Plimpton was surprised when some offended Internet feminists urged people to stay away, arguing that emphasizing “vaginas” hurts trans men who don’t want their reproductive organs coded as female. “Given the constant genital policing, you can’t expect trans folks to feel included by an event title focused on a policed, binary genital,” tweeted @DrJaneChi, an abortion and transgender health provider. (She mentioned “internal genitals” as an alternative.) When Plimpton insisted that she would continue to say “vagina,” her feed filled up with indignation. “So you’re really committed to doubling down on using a term that you’ve been told many times is exclusionary & harmful?” asked one self-described intersectional feminist blogger.
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...as [Mikki] Kendall well knows, many consider her a bully, though few want to say so out loud. “I kind of have a reputation for being mean,” she says. On the phone, Kendall isn’t mean. She seems warm and engaging, but also obsessed—she talks at length about slights made in the comment threads of blogs more than five years ago.

If I ever cite a comment from a blog post of five years ago, please shoot me.

An interesting reaction to Goldberg's piece here:

http://www.thefrisky.com/2014-01-29/the-nations-toxic-twitter-wars-piece-on-feminism-needed-to-be-said/

Although I like to think that I am well up on things, I had to look up what "cis" and "cisgendered" mean:

The opposite of transgendered, someone who is cisgendered has a gender identity that agrees with their societally recognized sex. Many transgender people prefer "cisgender" to "biological", "genetic", or "real" male or female because of the implications of those words.

I'm not against adding more nuance and sensitivity to language, and I get that "normal" and "real" in this context are potentially offensive, but this term strikes me as being located precisely at the spot where politically correct language shades into Orwellian Doublespeak. I agree with a comment I spotted about it: "It seems quite politically loaded to me, ie it's a word that tells you the person using it is seriously into gender politics."