But I engaged in manly combat in your presence! According to the rules of chivalrous romance you’re supposed to swoon into my arms now! Stop having a personality of your own, dammit!
[Aber ich habe in deiner Gegenwart an männlichem Wettkampf teilgenommen! Nach den Regeln ritterlicher Romantik musst du jetzt ohnmächtig in meine Arme sinken! Hör' auf, eine eigene Persönlichkeit zu haben, verdammt!]
Triplanetary on
CaptainAwkward.comZweisatz - 30. Okt, 09:32
I initially started this blog because I was dissatisfied with German feminist blogs, mainly due to the fact that I hardly knew any. Sure, this could be my own fault (or Google's fault) – who knows how many awesome blogs are out there that I've never heard of? And if I knew that I'm missing out on enlightening reading experiences, I would be sad.
But back to my first plan; I wanted to create a blog in German language [ironic, isn't it?] that contained articles about topics and was written in a fashion I was interested in. And I drew my inspiration, quite obviously, mainly from the US-American blogosphere.
But there's something which particularly annoys me when reading feminist blogs (no matter which language, but usually they are German): when people who write brilliant articles about interesting topics don't shut impolite, derailing, whining commenters up.
Imagine I read a concise, beautifully written piece and I am interested in what else people have to say and turn to the comment section. But as I am reading along I have to witness that the German author has to explain and re-explain things in the comments that they've already said, never intended to say or that they've never said in the first place – facts and statements that should be quite clear if you didn't read the article with malicious intent.
Nevertheless, these bloggers show the urge to be polite or to explain themselves or to set an example for other commenters – I don't know their motivation and it's not my blog, so I certainly can't make decisions concerning their comment policy, but when I read this kind of comment thread I am disappointed to find misguided and futile arguments and I silently wish the author was more strict.
Maybe it's about German mentality. Maybe, if you don't engage in conversations with people who are quite famous, but who write bullshit nevertheless, you'll never be published/get invited to conferences and hence denied the bigger audience you wish and deserve to reach. Maybe, in a country like Germany, my approach to comment guidelines only makes sense, if you never ever intent to go down well with the public.
It would really be a shame, if crude and stupid comments are the price German bloggers have to pay in order to draw enough attention to their important messages.
But a barely moderated comment section makes a blog less readable for me, that's for sure. Probably because I want to be able to relax in an environment that spreads ideas I appreciate and approve of. Furthermore, in my native language it takes me longer to learn to resist the urge to read what's written in the comment section.
Usually, I know all the websites whose comments are full of hateful shit, but when they are on feminist blogs, I usually read them anyway in the unrealistic hopes that bloggers will have said "Enough already, stop pissing in my front yard!" [This may be the weirdest non-existend English metaphor I've ever used. Please tell me.]
But feminism also means to use your right to enforce boundaries and I'm infuriated that you have to take shit in order to be taken seriously (at least a bit ... in an unfulfilling way). Usually, in a discourse about feminist topics with anyone who isn't even familiar with feminism 101 somehow they are allowed to be insulting, but you should stay sweet and polite.
No wonder my approach to discussions (and comments) differs: I am not willing to communicate with people who will maybe, one day, get what I am talking about. I refuse to explain things again and again that people could learn if they would only fucking educate themselves. It's not my duty to educate anyone.
No one [well, no European citizen...] would expect me to reiterate what happened in Europe after the Middle Ages because that's common knowledge and if you want to know more, go get a book and read it.
So why should I answer basic questions that have been answered time and time again by people who are much more patient than me? Moreover: questions which ignore and deny how our society really works? I don't care whether people are ignorant on purpose or unwittingly. I don't wear a sign that reads: "I am a feminist, ask me unreasonable questions!"
That's why I would be interested in other blogger's (and reader's) take on this. What kind of comments do you allow and why? (Which comment guidelines do you appreciate?) Do you think the discussions in your comments are worthwhile and that they are adding valuable points to the articles' content? Do you think you have to invite the mainstream in order to have the privilege to, some day, be considered mainstream yourself?
Zweisatz - 24. Okt, 23:05
I've already published a
very good link that explains the concept of privilege, but I want to make the topic even more understandable and link it clearly to people's lives.
That's why I'll list some privileges you can benefit from in future posts –usually even without realizing– as a man, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cis, ... person.
I encourage you to propose privileged groups I should write about or to add privileges I didn't come up with in the comments.
Zweisatz - 12. Okt, 08:00
Especially during summer time you can and will see a lot of skin, many diverse body types in diverse stages of life. You don't have to like what you see, but:
You don't have the right to be "shielded" from seeing certain body types (the only caveat being if it's in the context of a crime that violates your bodily autonomy).
So ... fat people can wear summer clothes, old people can wear summer clothes, disabled or sick people can wear summer clothes, "ugly" people can wear them, too. Everyone is allowed to do so.
It is a huge sign of ignorance and privilege if you think you have the right to police how other people present themselves in public. It shows that you think your subjective tastes are what counts and what everyone else wants to see and you feel your petty wishes are more important than other people's rights.
It's a sign that you consider your personal preference for (subjectively) aesthetic bodies more important than other people's right to wear clothes that both fit their personal needs and meet meteorological demands, to walk freely in public and to decide how to live their life. It means that one group of people (the healthy, young and "beautiful") has more rights than a different group. Furthermore, it signifies that you accept that society agrees upon an arbitrary beauty standard that everyone has to live up to: 'cause there is an ideal of beauty created by our society, always, but everyday people prefer different traits when it comes to beauty. One person's "meh" is another person's "wow!". So why do people think that their preferences are somehow superior to everyone else's? Because they feel like the head of a silent majority?
Even worse: if you are only focused on achieving "beauty" and punish "uglyness", you don't challenge the mainstream opinion about what counts as beautiful and what doesn't. And who, as a consequence, has the privilege to be called beautiful and is treated accordingly and who isn't. It means to limit people's opportunities based on arbitrary characteristics. It means to accept –wittingly or unwittingly– that wide ranges of the population develop an unhealthy body image, that they hate themselves, develop eating disorders, their self-esteem decreases, and, basically, they cannot imagine that they are right just as they are.
Is it so difficult to see that it hurts the whole society when you negatively affect the life of others because of your own superficiality?
Zweisatz - 6. Okt, 07:12
(I have always suspected that the reason why some men are so concerned to protect the women close to them from 'strange' men, is because they project their own treatment of other women onto all men).
[(Ich habe immer geargwöhnt, dass der Grund dafür, dass einige Männer so bedacht darauf sind, ihnen nahe stehende Frauen vor "komischen" Männern zu beschützen, der ist, dass sie ihre Art, Frauen zu behandeln, auf andere Männer projizieren.)]
Jane Clare Jones at
of minding and matteringZweisatz - 22. Sep, 15:34
