De Haut En Bas

With all due respect, I think you read me wrongly. Kactus *is* one of my favorite bloggers because she is among those that writes about class issues from within her experiences and not as “an academic aside” (to be referential). Additionally, I mean to riff off the name of her site “Super Babymama”, and I myself am a working-class single mother.

But with a job of the uncertain, badly paid type that are available these days and dependents, you’re fucked…

Agreed. And I write about my experiences with a shitty low-wage job at my own blog. It’s only this week that I’m guest-blogging at my old haunt.

Sorry about the delay in first post moderation, it’s because of the time difference. I sleep while you post and comment and vice versa. Nice to see you here anyjhow.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that I may have misunderstood your tone – subtext in a bit of brief bloggery can be notoriously difficult to comprehend and as I admit we have cultural differences, though I did live in the US for quite a while.

But having been in Kaktus’ postion myself I twitch at the slightest hint of comdescension: I’ve had my share of those women, colleagues too, who profess to admire – ‘Wow, you’re so brave! I don’t know how you do it!” – while simultaneously using you as a prop to bolster their political and compassional credibility.

I read a lot of American and other anglophone feminist blogs and have been doing so since blogs began. What’s fascinated me is how that despite the internet’s alleged anonymity (remember that fallacious trope , ‘on the internet no-one knows you’re a dog’ – it’s never been true) class and race and a horrible iUS-centric nsularity alwaysreign supreme and even more so on feminist blogs, though you’d think that wouldn’t be the case.

From this European perspective it’s class differences rather than race that jump out at me from blogs: turns of phrase, cultural references, assumptions about other people and the way the tone of some bloggers changes when they talk about another blogger they see as lower on the informal hierarchy than themselves. Obviously in US terms class tends to be synonymous with race and that translates also into the way US feminist blogs view ather nationalities. In the feminist blogosphere (though I dislike the term – I think ‘the ‘blogosphere’ concept is suspect, as implying a closed circle) it can look to the overseas reader like me as though there are no feminists on the planet but white Americans.

How has that happened? I’ve watched those who weren’t lucky enough to be in at the outset of blogging and/or who have influential friends, or who don’t have the support of an academic department or professional community to enable their blogging, attempting to make their voices heard and being squashed while their experiencxes on the frontline of poverty racism and misogyny were simultaneously being used to bolster their political credibility amongst the alternative pundiiterati.

To some the internet is an actual political tool, to some it is a career move. That’s just the way it is, I’m not blaming anyone or naming names, it’s life uinder capitalism. Pfooie. But the problems come when the first masquerades as the second, and there’s a lot of that about.

I’m certainly not saying that anyone’s motives (and this is not aimed at you personally it’s a meta issue) are entirely malign necessarily, just that they should be honest with themseves about their real motives and perhaps consider how this frames the larger conversation. Do you want to change the world or just make a noise and get noticed and get on in life? Fine, if tha latter’s what you want but bloody hell, be honest about it.

Because of this fundamental refusal to be entirely honest iwth oneself about just what it is politically you’re attempting to do with your blogging I often see US feminists talking right past each other: one group, mostly WOC and not so fortunately placed is arguing collective empowerment of all women through economic equality and the other is arguing personal rights: when what’s wanted is a synthesis of the two , but it cannot come about because of the asymetrical access to voice given to those who have money. So it’s the personal rights advocates that define the debate within the feminisit blogophere and decide who’s in and who’s out and who gets linked to.

There some within the charmed circle who do make a completely good-faith and concerted effort to reach out but so often it just comes over as crumbs from the table, a bit of playing the Lady Bountiful. I do try to read widely and get as good an overview of the ongoing conversation as possible and this is an issue that comes up again and again.

I’m willing to admit I may be an hypercritical reader who took an off-the-cuff comment as meaning more than intended, but and it’s a big but, nothing we write, even though it’s online, goes into the void. It’s read and filtered through others’ perceptions and life experiences and that loads every single word with a freight of subtext. Not that we should cripple ourself by considering every possible interpretaion of a phrase before we put fingers to keyboard, but a little consideration wouldn’t go amiss.

But hey, listen to me calling for sensitivity, the woman who uses ‘fuck’ every other word and who described labia as ‘corned-beef flaps’. I think I need to examine my own conscience and preconceptions too, a bit of self-examination never does any harm.