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Little Valkyrie ([info]waltraute) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2010-09-18 12:28:00


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This feminist blog which depends on your donations is not here to educate you!
Thanks to the anon at wank_report for the bulk of the writeup, with its singular virtues.

S.E. SMITH accuses Lady Gaga of appropriation:

It's been pointed out that she appropriates a lot of things from musical traditions created by people of colour and nonwhite people. That her work contains transmisogyny. That she appropriates the experiences of people with disabilities. These are all things that I don't think of as feminist acts—note that I am not saying that Lady Gaga is not feminist (because I don't think it's up to me to decide that), but rather that I am saying that her actions do not always mesh with the identity she has chosen to claim. The same could be said of many other people who identify as feminist, including myself, however. Let those in glass houses...

(bonus points for the excellent use of praeteritio here.)

A commenter asks for references and explanation. According to Snarky's Machine, late of the now-closed Shapely Prose, asking for sources is derailing and oppressive:

I can't be arsed to unpack and respond to your comment except to say you're trafficking in copious amounts of derailing for dummies. Your inability to "see" how Gaga misappropriates says everything about YOUR own privilege and inability to google "Grace Jones" and nothing else. If concepts are unfamiliar to you instead assuming the concepts themselves are wrong, you might want to hit up Professor Google. Because the argument, "you're wrong because I don't know what you're talking about." just does not cut it.

Comments defending that commenter get deleted (although some are reposted in the anon threads below). Mods claim to be "reviewing the situation" (i.e., pretending to do something about it). "Open thread" disappears after 20 minutes after irate commenters leave comments there. The current status is "please email the mods directly if you want to talk about comment policy", which couldn't possibly have a chilling effect--not at all.

Snarky's Machine has another reply to that initial commenter on Twitter:

Ha. I love how some weird ass creepy e-troll named whitney is stalking my feed and tattling cause I'm so mean. Who are these people.

People take refuge to complain in several threads in the sfd_anon community. (Which are now locked; possibly accessible if you're a member of the community.) Worth noting are the ones about how Bitch magazine aggressively solicits donations to support their journalism, which puts a special irony gloss on the "we're not here to educate you" rebuttal.


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[info]feenix
2010-09-20 03:46 am UTC (link)
I think we're taking two different readings from this. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm guessing your reading of smith's article is something like:

Lady Gaga's actions aren't necessarily in alignment with those of a feminist. However, nearly everyone, including myself, do some things that aren't feminist.

The reading I took away from ous article was:

Lady Gaga's actions aren't necessarily in alignment with those of a feminist, and grievously so. However, nearly everyone, including myself, do some things that aren't feminist.

Which is why I made the (admittedly, circular-sounding!) argument about what a feminist is and condemning the good in pursuit of the perfect.

Although I do now see where you're coming from. Perhaps I'm the one that's interrogating the text from the wrong perspective.

Tangentially, though - one thing that should be noted is that while a lot of us are academics here, I think it's a safe assumption that Lady Gaga isn't. (And on that note, a lot of us - including myself - aren't academics in kyriarchic studies.) So, while to a transgendered person the thing in "Telephone" where the guard says, "I knew she didn't have a dick" may be offensive (and - arguably - that may depend on the person!), that may not have been something that even crossed her mind, especially considering that this is a woman (her identification, not mine!) that gets at least one tabloid article written about her genitalia per week (and how they're male or at least male-appearing).

And...I'm just going to stop here because I'm probably digging myself into a greater ditch than I need to.

(Also, I just took a stab at the possessive form of ou. I'm hoping that it's correct, but I will be more than happy to correct myself if I'm wrong.)

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