Thanks to yesterday’s involuntary contributors, Valerie, Dr Sarah Tonin, and Saphire. You kids are all right. Today I’ll be picking a few more nits on the same theme. If a theme may be said to possess nits.
Queries blamer JenniferRuth on the subject of feminists gettin’ after other feminists for perceived infractions of the Unwritten Feminist Code:
[...] Is the tone of the message more important than the message?
In other words, if you see some patriarchy goin’ down, and it falls upon you to blame it, need you really mince words just to spare the feelings of the alleged perp? Shouldn’t the perp grow a pair, and learn from your expertise?
It can be argued (and is argued, by me, albeit somewhat obliquely, a bit further down) that the tone of the message is the message. Furthermore, when the tone may be construed as hostile or passive-aggressive or supercilious, “learning” cannot reasonably be expected to transpire.
Continues JenniferRuth (echoing the opinion of several other blamers):
I think that often a “gotcha” tone is inferred rather than intended. I see none of it in Dr Sarah Tonin’s comment. [Dr Sarah Tonin's comment is reproduced below -- Jill].
Alas, the intent of a remark is ultimately irrelevant to its audience; the net effect on the balance of the cosmos is what must be considered when assessing the gotchaness of any given remark delivered on a small-time blog. We have seen this intent-vs-effect scenario time and time again. For example:
When some progressive liberal dude drops anchor at Savage Death Island to take field notes on the wild feminist population, he might say something like “You ladies have really educated me, keep up the good work!” The dude imagines that he’s being supportive, but what he’s actually done is reinforce the dude-supremacist hierarchy by placing himself in a lofty position above the fray from which he may passively benefit from the ladies’ work while simultaneously condescending to bestow upon them the high honor of dudely approbation.
Privilege exercised by A is oppression experienced by B. Whether the A “means” it or not.
Back to Dr Sarah Tonin’s remark:
@Valerie, I agree with the basic sentiment of your comment, but druther you’d pick a less classist analogy than “trailer park”. Cheers.
It is well observed that Dr Sarah Tonin is not, in this example, mean. She opens with something conciliatory, briefly administers the correction, attempts to diffuse any potential sting with a breezy “cheers!” and gets the heck out. A case of the surgeon’s knife.
There are other, more extreme, more entertaining examples I might have used, but alas, you get what you pay for here at I Blame the Patriarchy.
However. As for whether, as JenniferRuth wonders, the “gotcha” tone is real or imagined: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck …
Read it again:
@Valerie, I agree with the basic sentiment of your comment, but druther you’d pick a less classist analogy than “trailer park”. Cheers.
Observe that Dr Sarah Tonin speaks directly to Valerie using the first person “I.” She alludes to Valerie’s infraction as distasteful to Dr Sarah Tonin personally. In so doing, she introduces a “j’accuse” dynamic, establishing a mini-hierarchy wherein she confers upon herself hall monitor status. She’s a pleasant hall monitor, but a hall monitor nonetheless. This dynamic makes the “cheers” feel a bit disingenuous.
It should also be noted that Dr Sarah Tonin’s humorous Internet moniker contains the quasi-honorific “Dr,” which, whether or not Sarah Tonin is an actual doctor, adds to her remarks a subliminal and somewhat presumptuous dollop of authoritative clout. The subtext might be read as “As your superior officer, I deem you in violation of the unwritten code.”
A more enbiggening, albeit more time-consuming, approach would have been for Dr Sarah Tonin to eliminate both her personal preferences and Valerie from her remarks altogether, and to compose her argument from a more universal point of view. Perhaps something like:
“Although trailer parks have enjoyed a colorful history as joke-butts among the upper classes and other denizens of site-built homes, these jokes are considered by many feminists to contain classist slurs that a) unjustly portray low socio-economic status as a character flaw, and b) bolster the jokester’s own status as someone privileged enough to make such pronouncements.”
Such a statement might still have offended the charmingly implacable Saphire (Valerie herself, it should be noted, has, as of this writing, yet to weigh in on the subject), but at least it would have met most of the criteria upon which the Blametariat appears to agree are necessary for successful consciousness-raising: it’s neutral in tone; it’s addressed to a general audience rather than to a specific blamer; it describes a widely-held philosophical position re: trailer parks rather than a statement of personal opinion; it’s an introductory explication of the problem with trailer-park jokes; and possibly it might even serve as a template from which a less-experienced feminist might extrapolate for future instances of self-privilege-awareness.
I Blame the Patriarchy’s superfatted Guidelines For Commenters already contains a plea for the excision of the first person singular from the Blametarium; it should, at least for purposes of Internecine Nit-Picking, also include a moratorium on the pronoun “you.”
These pronouns, they’re really something!
In closing, let us remember that, although this blog originated as a light entertainment delivery device for the amusement of its author, today its primary function is patriarchy-blaming. So, if you see some patriarchy in progress, and think you can blame it, bring it, girlfriend! The less culture-of-domination shit you throw around while doing it, the better.
Fun fact: I used to work in a manufactured housing factory, where I was the lowliest form of life, the girl who swept out the houses when they rolled off the assembly line. I will always be grateful to that job for hipping me to the existence of the Hokey, an inexpensive, human-powered housekeeping implement I use to this day to remove golden retriever hair from a blue paisley rug.
By the way, as somebody pointed out yesterday, the actual term for the type of dwelling under discussion is “manufactured home.” It may be “PC” (as the commenter suggested), but it’s also the official industry designation, for the simple reason that, once delivered, these houses are affixed to the ground with concrete pylons and don’t go anywhere. I know what I’m talkin’ about when I say that manufactured housing often exceeds, in terms of eco-friendliness, energy efficiency, price, maintenance costs, and general quality, comparable site-built homes. See photo, above.
A “trailer” is something you hitch to your Ford F-250 to transport livestock, hay, landscaping equipment, or an Emergency Mobile Margarita Bar.
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Photo: Adorable “trailer” is (surprisingly?) un-trashy. 475 sq ft “Eco-Cottage” by Nationwide Homes.
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