The Feminist (blog) community and Anger

Context:

This concludes a series I wrote responding to a post by Kameron Hurley of Brutal Women. Kameron Hurley has privately and publicly extended support and encouragement towards me, even though my views differ from her own. Her generosity and openness to dialogue has motivated me to conclude this series. I would like to publicly thank her again here.

Overview

The first part of this essay discusses "Thoughts on Intelligent Blogging" and the subject of feminist anger. The middle section contains reader comments which I extracted from my previous piece and from other blogs. The concluding part looks at anger in the context of blogging, as well as focusing on my own blog, Sour Duck.

The Feminist (blog) community and Anger

Kameron seems to set up two concepts - intelligence and anger - as existing at polar opposites, yet the two are not mutually exclusive. What's more, the fusing of both makes for some of the most influential and memorable feminist writing. However, Kameron announces that she's moving away from angry writing in a piece that reads like a tiptoe between her feminist readers and her more general readership.

Hurley's piece is an apology couched in a relocation tale (her apartment move). She blames the resulting chaos and stress for her recent posts, which she labels as "reactionary", "lazy" and "negative". And, although it's somewhat disguised, these terms are linked to a certain type of feminist writing: the angry kind. Here she explains her decision to alter the style of content at her blog:

"I had a couple of people very close to me, people I trust and respect, tell me my blogging was getting reactionary and ill-thought-out. I was losing some of the sharp wit and actual argumentative reasoning skills that make pointing out people's bullshit so much fun."

Apparently, feminism is okay, but angry feminism (which is more likely to alienate her general readership) is right out. She writes:

"It was suggested that some of this may be because I'm a part of 'the feminist blogging community,' and as my hit count's gone up, I've gotten lazier and more reactionary. There's a reason wackjobs like, say, Ann Coulter get big audiences. There's a carwreck voyeurism about it that keeps you clicking for more."

There's an assumption made by her that Brutal Women's popularity has gone up not because her readership are on-board with her, but because they are on the shoreline scoffing at the sinking ship. In other words, that people are actually tuning in for the outrageous, unjustified spectacle of feminist anger (according to the wider culture). What else can account for the quick leap of logic between "feminist blogging community" --> "a higher readership" --> being regarded as a "wackjob"?

But there's an alternative possibility: that Brutal Women's hit count has increased not because people are mentally mocking her posts, but because people are in agreement with her analysis, angry or otherwise.

The Ann Coulter example detracts from the core issue: women expressing anger (especially feminist anger) on the internet, in any form, are trivialized and/or strongly denounced (and that's a polite term) by the majority of people - especially (alas!) men, who are the most threatened by it. Not only is women's anger routinely dismissed but, to add insult to injury, the speaker herself is often attacked and characterized as needing to calm down. In fact, Kameron legitimizes this slap-down to angry women when she writes "And I need to calm the fuck down and think clearly again."

The only reason Hurley needs to "calm the fuck down" is because it's a cultural imperative for her gender.

"If I raise my voice will someone get hurt?" (Garbage, "Silence is Golden")

I understand her concern: bloggers who can be identified as female are regularly smacked-down in their comments section as being too angry (there are so many examples out there - take your pick), even when anger is warranted (and entirely understandable). Kameron has written on this subject herself, and of the double-standards when it comes to which gender can express the power emotion of anger. (A Sour Duck commenter pointed out that status and emotion, particularly anger, are related.)

I also found this an upsetting development at the Brutal Women blog, because of what it might mean for my own blog (more on this later). As a reader, I was disappointed to read this announcement. I don't read Brutal Women for the "Good Morning, Chicklits" posts, nor the "Friday beer blogging" posts - I read it for the angry feminist analysis. I realize that this is just me, and that many of her readers do read her blog for the Friday Beer blogging and chicklits type posts. This is all subjective. But I like feminist writing with a bit of grit in it, and blogs are particularly freeing for women in that anger can be safely expressed here. (Academic feminist writing, for instance, has had to remove some, if not all, of the angry grit in order for the male establishment to be able to tolerate it. But that may also be due, in part, to the whole academic pretense of robots-as-authors, not real live human beings.)

But I do disagree with the dismissal of anger at Brutal Women. Afterall, the title is Brutal Women, not Fluffy Pink Bunny-Knitting Women. She couples "lazy" and "anger", creating a strong association between the two. So, writing a spitfire post about a Dove ad is less valuable than a careful analysis of said Dove ad written in a remote, detatched authorial voice...? The robot-as-author is only appealing in certain contexts and for certain documents - blogs ain't one of them.

I'm not a(n) (angry) feminist, but...

Part of the reason I had a strong reaction to Hurley's post is that it reminded me of women always having to censor, or edit, or disguise their truth. The requirement that women deliver their critiques with a smile on their faces. The incredible stigma our male-dominated culture has attached to women who are angry is such that even in contexts where it is appropriate, women are judged unfairly and harshly for it. (I've alluded to the "nice girl syndrome" in the past.)

I do realize Hurley writes about what her goals are for her blog, and that her backing away from angry feminist writing is in line with these goals:

"Ideally, this blog should be a neat amalgamation of thoughts and opinions - my thoughts and opinions - on feminism, fat acceptance, science fiction and fantasy books and film, martial arts & boxing and fitness in general, and women and warfare."

And it is her blog, afterall. Not the "Feminist Community Blog", as she points out. Unfortunately, for me, the reasoning behind her remarks (buried in the post) resonated with my own issues of self-censorship and the need to please.

Some Remarks made in Comment Sections (here and elsewhere)

A comment left by Kaledberg at Burningbird directly links into my concern about being all feminism all the time:

"Changing the world, or even a small piece of it, however can require heroic hours and tremendous effort, and here women run into problems because they are expected to be 'well rounded', that is, not too focused on attaining any one goal. The women, and men, for that matter, I have known who have actually changed the world were not well rounded. Mind you, they had friends, and lives, and often children and hobbies, but they also had their goal, and when something had to give, it was not their goal."

Terry of I See Invisible People made some helpful comments at this blog about her writing process:

"It's hard for me to reach that level of detachment. I want people to like me. I can't tell you how many posts I've deleted after writing in anger, or worse, gone back and edited all the passion out of a piece on an issue I care a lot about. I need to work on that."

As Terry notes, filtering out all anger (or any other emotion) turns the writing into bland oatmeal mush. She also prompts me to examine my own motivators: do I want to write with an eye to getting people to like and/or approve of me?

Lisa of Learning the Lessons of Nixon made an extraordinary insight into emotion, authenticity and blogging:

"My big problem as a blogger was blogging angry. I just didn't feel like it was getting me anywhere, which is why the very first principle on my list is Kindness.

Many people who read my blog policy are put off by that; in a sense, it's countercultural, at least to the culture of blogging, where rawness and anger is considered a sign of authenticity. But I think (and hope) that compassion is not incompatible with truthfulness."

As she notes, there is a strong link between authenticity and emotion in blog culture. Mostly because we censor so much in our daily lives, when a genuine emotion is uncensored and expressed - even in this flat text space - people are usually very impressed with it. At least, I know I am. And let's face it: if you're a woman you have so much to be angry about, and so much you must censor on an everyday basis. Just to "get along."

Winter Woods of Mind the Gap! left this remark here at my blog:

"Blogs are strange spaces: neither entirely private, nor public... I think we need to stop being afraid of anger and as Nina says, try and use it to our advantage. This takes some thinking and strategizing."

Sour Duck, Angry Feminism, Strategizing and all that

Hurley's piece was threatening to me in terms of my own blogging. I saw a prominent, well-regarded feminist blogger distance herself from what I call "feminist writing with grit in it." Does her decision de-legitimize my own preoccupations and tentative approaches to the subject of anger? Here are just a few questions I'm pondering:

• Should "Sour Duck" be "all feminism, all the time"?


• Is that approach useful to readers, or does it undermine having an impact on those outside the feminist community?


• Who the hell am I writing for, anyway? Myself, or the reader?


• If I'm partly writing for readers: Am I writing for non-feminists, or casual drop-by visitors who happened upon my blog? Or someone else? (This gets uncomfortably close to the "profiling" and the language of marketing for me.)


• Am I trying to be popular?

I suppose the answers depend upon what your blogging goals are (if any!).

I've recently read (and heard) some intelligent people decry people who belong to a single-issue community. To make it more personal and use the pronoun "I": They maintain that my goal should be to talk with folk who aren't like me (non-feminists or even anti-feminists), in order to increase intellectual growth, understanding and eventually, I suppose, achieve social harmony. My response is I don't have to present a diverse blogroll or menu of topics at my blog because I've been exposed to opposing views my whole life. It's called patriarchy. And I hardly feel enriched by it. If I turn to the internet in order to spend some time with like-minded people (read: feminists), I hope you all can cut me some slack. I need it for my sanity. I need it in order to feel re-energized. Most of all, I need it to feel hopeful.

I see nothing wrong with "all feminism, all the time" spaces or blogs on the internet. In fact, it is wholly admirable to create a safe community to vent feminist anger and frustration to a sympathetic audience. As exclusionary as these communities may seem to someone from the outside, creating these online places, especially for groups who aren't high-status or in power, is an incredibly worthwhile community service. Especially on the internet, where anti-feminists can and do invade and dominate feminist public spaces.

Half Changed World argues here and here that the more politically effective blogs are often personal blogs (such as Mommy blogs), because they can function as a sort of "digital Trojan Horse" (my words, not hers). She also points to a worthwhile piece by Learning The Lessons of Nixon, who urges bloggers, "I say unto you, fellow blogger: Don't start another blog."

Coda

"Masculinity and femininity are still euphemisms for male dominance and female subordination. In our andocentric society, masculinity and femininity are not just about 'personalities' or 'communication styles'. They are about power. Difference is society's smokescreen."

- Kathleen Trigiani, "Masculinity-Femininity: Society's Difference Dividend"

Related links:

"Thoughts on Intelligent Blogging" by Kameron Hurley. Readers weigh in with their perspectives on Hurley's post in the comments section, including myself.
"A Call for Young Women to Get Mad!" by Delanie Woodlock, Feminista! (Vol. 4, no. 2)
"Expressing Anger Garners Power, Position and Status" by Alan Mozes (as well as other articles on that page).

(All emphases by Sour Duck.)