SXSW Panel Notes: Public Square or Private Club: Does Exclusivity Strengthen or Dilute?

I was invited to speak as a panelist at the recent South by Southwest conference. The panel was called, “Public Square or Private Club: Does Exclusivity Strengthen or Dilute?”

We were given a set of questions by the moderator prior to the panel. I drew up some notes, which I consulted during the panel. Because of the spontaneous nature of the panel (which I enjoyed), I did not always have a chance to give my complete answer. I open my notebook here both to those who attended the panel, so that they can read my full answers, and to those who did not attend SXSW, so that they can gain a partial window into the proceedings.

My answers follow each italicized question.

Panel: “Public Square or Private Club: Does Exclusivity Strengthen or Dilute?” (Saturday, March 11th @ 5 PM)

Panelists: Tiffany B. Brown, Melinda Casino (myself), Barb Dybwad.

Moderator: Lisa Stone.

Question 1: The big why—why do some people seek gender-specific, race-specific, interest-specific gatherings online? What have you been able to accomplish in identity communities that you couldn't do elsewhere?

People have always gathered together around shared interests, whether it be knitting, golf, political groups, etc. So offline, this behavior is not new.

Online, this behavior isn’t new either. Gathering together under common interests is as old as Usenet and email lists. The only difference with online groups is that people can come together who are geographically dispersed.

So this is a behavior pattern that takes place online and off, and anyone who is surprised at online self-segregated groups hasn’t been paying attention!

With groups that coalesce around race and/or gender, one of the primary motivations is emotional validation – or the “It’s probably me” factor.

When people belong to a non-dominant group that lacks representation in mainstream culture (anyone who is not a white heterosexual male), many of their daily experiences and problems are individualized. Their perpectives aren’t represented, so their reaction to these events may be a “it’s probably me” reaction. Gathering with others like you leads to a realization that there is a political dimension to these experiences, and relieves that sense of isolation. Seen in a larger context, the events can be more easily understood as a pattern - a pattern that can be changed. Often, these groups can have a revitalizing effect, as members realize “it’s not just me!”

The revitalizing effect can then lead to action with real-world results. A good example of this is the book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book written by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Before they organized into the BWHBC, they were a loose collection of women who talked to each other and realized they were receiving poor treatment from the medical establishment. They got angry, and that anger is acknowledged by the original group members. (For some more background, see my blog post.) They organized themselves and started a project to educate women about their bodies and how they worked. Their work, along with the book, had the effect of putting pressure on medical institutions to change, which they did.

Question 2: Do these efforts ultimately empower the individuals and the group—or prove to further insulate and isolate them? If these groups work, why open them up at all to the larger online community?

These groups have to potential to function extremely well in educating its members. People recommend books, talk and share experiences, and generally increase their knowledge. So raising awareness is a primary benefit of self-segregated groups.

A good example of this is feminism. There are many different versions of feminism, and many diverse views within each strand. Feminist group members can educate each other and also work out what kind of feminism rings true with them through discussion in a safe environment.

BUT—

The danger is the group can become a closed circle. Over time, it can become stale, where the same ideas are introduced with no progress, because everyone's on the same page by now. It can then become uninteresting, with the result that the group dissolves. Or the members might engage in a lot of head-nodding.

Moreover:

The group is receiving no new ideas from the outside…

…and perhaps more importantly:

The group is not introducing their ideas to the outside.

Each group will (hopefully) have a “now what?” moment. The “now what?” moment signals it’s time to engage with the outside world, hopefully changing it for the better. This translates to ACTION.

An example of segregating to the point of harming a movement is radical feminism. Radical feminism as a movement glommed onto separatism (living apart from men). Many women didn’t see how this would work, and didn’t want to live apart from men anyway. This alienated many from radical feminism and the movement sank like a stone. A more effective strategy would have been to engage with the world we are given, in order to improve it.

Question 3: Why, when and how do you open up to people who don’t “fit” the demographic but who are genuinely supportive in a way that supports you and the core community? How do you deal with anger—yours and others’—when so-called outsiders upset the apple cart?

We’re talking about these issues within the context of online communities, and specifically, within the context of blogging:

Blogs are open. Anyone can read at any time, and anyone can respond, unless you're moderating your comments or do not offer a comments facility. Even if you moderate comments or don't have comments, someone can write about your post at their blog, so the feeling of protection or control with blogs is largely an illusion.

The real issue is handling disagreement. Each blogger needs to learn to discern between two kinds of disagreement:

Good Disagreement ---> This is a respectful but contructive challenge to what the blogger has written. ----> Tests ideas of the blogger.

The testing stage is crucial if the blogger wants to introduce her ideas to a wider audience. She needs to expose her ideas to outside elements in order to see if they can withstand harsh weather.

Bad Disagreement ---> What I call the “Asshole Factor”.

The Asshole Factor is not new, it’s been around since Usenet and email. This is basically someone who does not want to engage with your argument, they want to disrupt, distract and generally cause chaos. Personal comments are sometimes a part of this behavior. These are also the flamers.

My concluding point is:

You cannot pick and choose. You open yourself to both kinds of disagreement when you blog. That’s the risk that you take.

You can moderate your comments to keep the Asshole Factor low, but they can always blog or use the internet to discuss your posts.

Regarding anger:

Well, I don’t deal with my anger, which is probably why I’m so preoccupied with it at my blog!

Anger is a great motivator. It’s probably motivated more feminist action than any other emotion.

Unfortunately, anger is a problem for many women. Women are socialized to suppress anger. This is because women belong to a subordinate group, and are largely defined by the submissive role – which is tied in with femininity. Anger doesn’t jibe well with traditional notions of femininity. Anger is linked to dominance; public expressions of anger made by any subordinate group (e.g., Asian-Americans) is not tolerated well by mainstream culture. (For more, you can see my posts on anger.)

The challenge for feminists is to be able to acknowledge anger, and then to be able to harness that emotion towards constructive action. A great example of this is The Feminist Rage Page, whose motto is:

“Equality Never Looked So Pissed”

The Rage Page is a moderated Live Journal forum, where members are encouraged to vent on any and every aspect of their daily lives. Quite often, the comments are supportive and also give ideas of how to handle a situation in future – there is a log of creative problem-solving going on.

The Rage Page has a sister site called Feminist Action – this encourages real-world action, channeling the anger into constructive projects that bring feminism to a much wider audience. This dual approach is ideal.

Supportive communities lead to activist communities.

Question 4: Let’s turn the tables on ourselves: We consistently work to evangelize our interests to mainstream culture. Name a person in that culture whom you think you should work to get to know and to understand better.

When I first read this question, my initial thought was, “Screw that!” There’s another BlogHer panel at SXSW about women and visibility called, “Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?” Our panel seems to end on a note of “Whose Butt Should We Be Kissing?”

I don’t like this question because it’s one step away from begging for a link from an A-list blogger.

It also seems antithetical to the spirit and subject of the panel discussion. Do A-list bloggers really need more publicity from us?

Instead, I proposed mentioning some blogs not linked to so much. My list consisted of the following:

Feminist Rage Page*
Marian’s Blog
Woman of Color Blog
Blac(k)ademic
Slant Truth

* This was on my list but I did not read it out loud, as I had mentioned it earlier.

(I was pleased when Tiffany enthusiastically picked up on my mention of Blac(k)ademic and sang its praises as well.)

I would like to add that the word “evangelize” put me off a bit too: it sounds like a fancy way of saying “I schmooze for a living”.

Personal Note

I would like to say that my disagreement with Question 4 was with the question, not the person who conceived it or put it forth. I'm talking about our moderator, Lisa Stone. I thought she did a great job and thank her again, publicly, for asking me on this panel.

I would also like to thank Barb Dybwad – she knows why. And I would like to thank Tiffany Brown, who helped me pre-panel (I had a lot of questions and she had done SXSW before); she also gave me a big hug afterwards – thanks, Tiffany, I needed that. I feel lucky to have met these people, and especially lucky to find that they were such gracious co-panelists. Good luck to you both in the next year and I hope to see you another time!

Related links:

Tiffany B. Brown has a SXSW wrap-up post at her personal site and a follow-up post to the panel at Blackfeminism.com.

Lisa Stone, Surfette, “UPDATED: Public Square or Private Club? - SXSW panel with Tiffany Brown, Melinda Casino and Barb Dybwad”

Liz Henry at Badgerbag (“messy, surly, full of books”) has liveblogged this panel.

P.S. - Whoever took a group photo of the panelists and moderator immediately after the panel ended, please do get in touch with me. I’d love to see that photo!