Commenting Rules for the FSF Blog

This is a first draft of the posting rules for FeministSF - The Blog!

Posting rules for non-feminists

This is a feminist sf blog. The people who have posting privileges here are all feminist SF fans. We are here to discuss feminism/sf/feminist sf/sf and feminism. We are not here to educate you about feminism. If, as a result of reading this blog, you are educated about feminism, we're happy for you: but it's not our primary purpose in life to do so.

You are most likely to have been directed here because you asked a question or made a comment indicating that you are a non-feminist in need of reading these guidelines in order to be allowed to continue to participate on this blog. If you decide you'd rather not participate, the door is that way, and you can be on the other side of it.

1. You may in fact be a feminist, even if you prefer not to identify as one. If you find yourself formulating statements on the lines of "I'm not a feminist, but - " you should go read the essay Yes, you are. And then you should think about why endorsing feminist values is okay, but it feels scary or wrong to identify as a feminist.

2. Don't come back to us and say "Feminism is putting women first: I am a humanist, I put human beings first". Women are human beings: feminists put human beings first. Do not, also, come back to us and say "How can you care about X" where X is a feminist value, "when thisshit is happening?" It is not impossible that some of the feminists you are talking to are also passionately involved in actually doing something about thisshit: activists tend to care passionately about a lot of things, and you will look like a fool. But also, this is a feminist sf blog. Do not presume that because people here are not talking, here, about thisshit, and won't let you talk, here, about thisshit, that it's something they don't care about: it just means that we won't let you morph a feminist sf blog into a generalist all-issues blog.

3. Feminism cannot be packed into a short set of rules. At the end of this post, you'll find a short reading list, of books we all agree are essential to feminist sf, and a long reading list, of books all of us have agreed are good background reading for feminist sf. If you're truly interested in learning more about feminism/feminist sf, those book lists are a good starting point.

4. We live in a patriarchal society. Patriarchy is the anthropological term used to define the sociological condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position. Some non-feminists assume that when they hear feminists talking about the patriarchy, this means we're blaming "all men" or we're claiming that "all men are better off in this culture than any woman" or some other confusion of "all men" with the patriarchy. This is a common, and completely wrong, confusion. We won't bother telling you twice.

5. You may well see feminists disagreeing with each other in discussion. Don't think that "because X disagrees with Y about what the feminist position is on Z, either X is not a feminist or Y is not a feminist. Feminism is not monolithic. Though X and Y disagree in this instance, they probably agree with each other on many other issues.

6. Abusive or sexist language will not be tolerated. What does that mean? Means if you call people names, or abuse them, instead of arguing civilly, we'll ban you. Means if you try to denigrate a person because she's female or an idea because it's a feminist one, we'll warn you and then ban you. We don't like racist or homophobic or any other kind of abusive or denigratory language, either.

7. We're not here to argue with anti-feminists or misogynists about our basic values, or even to explain to you what our basic values are. We do not feel the need to defend feminism to you, or to explain to you what we mean by feminism, or to argue the case for our being feminists. We might be interested in doing that on other forums, but not here.

• Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority. Mary Wollstonecraft
• Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less. Susan B. Anthony
• I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. Rebecca West
• What I am proud of, what seems so simply clear, is that feminism is a way to fight for justice, always in short supply. Barbara Strickland
• I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist. Sally Kempton
• Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings. Cheris Kramerae

8. There's a moment in C.J. Cherryh's Cuckoo's Egg where the adult trainer (who comes from a species with no handedness) says to his human student, "You feinted left, went right," and the student says defensively "I thought this time I'd surprise you!" and his teacher retorts, "Not when you do it every time!" Some tropes in fiction - women being raped - girl children being sexually abused - women submitting themselves to men, women finding joy and satisfaction in becoming a good wife and mother and giving up independence - are like that: they aren't "surprising", or "interesting", or "revolutionary", and it makes no difference if the incident is presented positively or negatively: they're just another patriarchal trope in fiction.

9. Related to the latter: it is a standard patriarchal trope that men's bodies just are, and women's bodies are overtly sexual. That's why Frank Miller draws drooling pictures of Wonder Woman's butt for front covers, but not Superman's crotch or Batman's butt. This is a given value for the patriarchy: it is not just something "natural" or "how women are".

10. Do not try to tell us "what feminists believe".

Posting rules for men

"The exclamation [of my friend] ... was not merely the cry of wounded vanity; it was a protest against some infringement of his power to believe in himself. Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice his natural size." - Virgina Woolf

You are most likely to have been directed here because you asked a question or made a comment indicating that you are a man in need of reading these guidelines in order to be allowed to continue to participate on this blog. If you decide you'd rather not participate, the door is that way, and you can be on the other side of it.

1. Because you are a man, you have male privilege in this society. You are most likely unaware of how male privilege has eased your way, and in an environment where you will not be allowed to exercise male privilege, such as this blog, you will probably find yourself thinking "That's not fair!" and "Why am I being treated like that?" because that's how privileged people tend to react when privileges are removed that they are so accustomed to, they think of them as rights. Go read The Male Privilege Checklist. We are not interested in arguing with you about whether or not you have male privilege, or how that concept works in real life: we just want you to understand that here, on this blog, you are not permitted the status your male privilege gives you in the wider world.

2. In general, don't try to turn a conversation about how women experience the world into a conversation about how you, a man, experience the world. If you have nothing to contribute to any particular discussion because its focus is entirely on women's experience, read without commenting. In particular, do not attempt to derail discussions about rape with comments like "But men get raped too!", or to derail any similar discussion with equivalent attempts to turn the discussion from violence by men against women to violence where men are the victims.

3. In general, if someone makes a point about male behaviour, don't try to turn the conversation by arguing that you're not like that, or you don't do that. Maybe you aren't and you don't, but you know what? It's really not all about you. Furthermore, you may find - if you let yourself know it - that behaviour you took for granted looked very different from a woman's perspective. But, mainly: conversation about how male behaviour looks to women is not assisted by men explaining how men think of male behaviour. We already know: it's not as if men keep it a secret.

4. Do not try to excuse bad behaviour from men because "that's how men are", or trying to justify it in terms of evolutionary theory or any other BS is just another way of endorsing patriarchal values and male privilege. (If you don't grok "patriarchy", go read the posting rules for non-feminists.)

5. If someone makes a comment that assumes all the readers are women, or that everyone in a particular group is a woman, take it as an educational experience: this kind of thing happens to women all the time. Don't derail the conversation by piping up "Hey, I'm a man!"

6. Do not assume that women will be flattered by being told "You've really got balls!" or won't mind some man being denigrated by being referred to as "a pussy" or "a girl". It is not flattering to be told that a man assumes his genitals are a synonym for courage, and insulting to have a man insult another man by comparing him to a woman or a woman's genitals.

7. In general, do not use endearments such as "honey" or "sweetie" when in hot disagreement with someone. That's condescending and infuriating, as it strongly implies that you don't take that person's views seriously.

8. Sometimes women will make jokes about men or male behaviour that you don't think are funny. Think of this as an educational experience: don't interrupt to tell us you think that joke's not funny, or that it degrades men AND women for women to talk about men like that.

9. If you don’t understand what women are saying to each other, but the people involved in the conversation clearly understand each other perfectly well, you have three legitimate options: (1) Continue to read the conversation, and try to understand without derailing it. (2) E-mail one of the people offblog and ask - politely - for clarification. She may or may not choose to explain. (3) Stop reading the conversation. Do not interrupt the conversation to demand clarification.

10. If you make a comment and are told you have misunderstood, accept that you have misunderstood; don't derail the discussion by arguing at length that your interpretation is right and theirs is wrong.

11. Do not try to tell us "what women want".