“However, even if they were completely 100% failing, then there is still a very important thing that we can learn from them: what have they tried that didn’t work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.”
This is completely fair. You’re right that I thought you were suggesting we should emulate, which on closer inspection isn’t an accurate reading of your post.
With that said, my experience of talking to the ‘nice’ people more internal to feminism (which includes my soon-to-be-wife, among others) about this is that they tend to deny or excuse the external optics problems, rather than making a bona fide attempt to deal with them. You can’t compare notes if they don’t have notes. If you know leaders who are aware of and actually trying to fix the problem, then I agree you should talk to them and I hope you do learn something of their positive or negative experiences which we might be able to apply.
Yeah, I can see how that could be an issue, and honestly I do lean towards the “the external optics problem is the patriarchy’s fault, not ours—telling us that we are ‘not nice enough’ is just a form of silencing, and you wouldn’t listen to us anyway if we were ‘nicer’” viewpoint, but I can see how that can make this discussion difficult. I’m just mostly hoping that the discussions on ‘calling-in’ within feminism move forward—even a quick google search shows that it’s popping up on a lot of the feminist sights targeted to younger audiences—it may be on oncoming change, and hopefully it’ll pick up steam.
“However, even if they were completely 100% failing, then there is still a very important thing that we can learn from them: what have they tried that didn’t work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.”
This is completely fair. You’re right that I thought you were suggesting we should emulate, which on closer inspection isn’t an accurate reading of your post.
With that said, my experience of talking to the ‘nice’ people more internal to feminism (which includes my soon-to-be-wife, among others) about this is that they tend to deny or excuse the external optics problems, rather than making a bona fide attempt to deal with them. You can’t compare notes if they don’t have notes. If you know leaders who are aware of and actually trying to fix the problem, then I agree you should talk to them and I hope you do learn something of their positive or negative experiences which we might be able to apply.
Yeah, I can see how that could be an issue, and honestly I do lean towards the “the external optics problem is the patriarchy’s fault, not ours—telling us that we are ‘not nice enough’ is just a form of silencing, and you wouldn’t listen to us anyway if we were ‘nicer’” viewpoint, but I can see how that can make this discussion difficult. I’m just mostly hoping that the discussions on ‘calling-in’ within feminism move forward—even a quick google search shows that it’s popping up on a lot of the feminist sights targeted to younger audiences—it may be on oncoming change, and hopefully it’ll pick up steam.
Congratulations on your engagement by the way!