Iâm sorry to hear that your initial impression of EA, much like your initial impression of feminism, consisted of âmultiple people without economics backgrounds jump on me to explain that I was wrong while condescendingly explaining basic economics to meâ. Thatâs a problem, and we should try to fix it.
Feminism has the same problem, I would argue on a much grander scale. If feminism is making progress towards solving this problem, I havenât noticed; if anything the direction of travel seems to be the other way. You observe that âonce youâre inside, itâs a very supportive and tolerant communityâ, but thatâs very much beside the point. The problem weâre trying to solve is not how the community feels on the inside, itâs how it looks from the outside. On this score I really sincerely doubt feminism is a good example to look at, however nice (most of) the actual people involved are when you directly interact with them, which Iâm sure they are.
I think to really counter this you need to argue that feminism actually has better external optics than I and casebash think it does.
Ah, I see the issue nowâyou are assuming that Iâm saying that feminism has a model that we should directly emulate, whereas I am just saying that they are dealing with similar issues, and we have things to learn from them. In short, there are leaders in feminism who have been working on this issue, with some limited success and yes, a lot of failures. 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 didnât work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.
The key is getting that conversation started, and comparing notes. Your perception of feminism and the problems therein may change in the process, but most importantly we all may learn some important lessons that can be applied in EA (even if they do consist primarily of âhey this one solution really doesnât work, if you do anything, do something elseâ).
If you are truly 100% not convinced that we can learn this from feminism, then thatâs OK: you can talk to leaders of any other social movement instead, since many of them have dealt with and thought about similar problems. Your local union reps may be a good place to start!
âHowever, 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 didnât work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.â
This is completely fair. Youâre right that I thought you were suggesting we should emulate, which on closer inspection isnât an accurate reading of your post.
With that said, my experience of talking to the âniceâ 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 canât compare notes if they donât 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 âthe external optics problem is the patriarchyâs fault, not oursâtelling us that we are ânot nice enoughâ is just a form of silencing, and you wouldnât listen to us anyway if we were ânicerââ viewpoint, but I can see how that can make this discussion difficult. Iâm just mostly hoping that the discussions on âcalling-inâ within feminism move forwardâeven a quick google search shows that itâs popping up on a lot of the feminist sights targeted to younger audiencesâit may be on oncoming change, and hopefully itâll pick up steam.
This is an excellent comment that clarifies a lot. I completely agree with everything youâve said in this comment, but I also agree with AGB that, at least from an outsiderâs perspective, it is hard to find people within feminism who have ânotesâ that we could learn from. Of course, an insider like yourself would likely have a much better ability to locate such ideas.
Iâm sorry to hear that your initial impression of EA, much like your initial impression of feminism, consisted of âmultiple people without economics backgrounds jump on me to explain that I was wrong while condescendingly explaining basic economics to meâ. Thatâs a problem, and we should try to fix it.
Feminism has the same problem, I would argue on a much grander scale. If feminism is making progress towards solving this problem, I havenât noticed; if anything the direction of travel seems to be the other way. You observe that âonce youâre inside, itâs a very supportive and tolerant communityâ, but thatâs very much beside the point. The problem weâre trying to solve is not how the community feels on the inside, itâs how it looks from the outside. On this score I really sincerely doubt feminism is a good example to look at, however nice (most of) the actual people involved are when you directly interact with them, which Iâm sure they are.
I think to really counter this you need to argue that feminism actually has better external optics than I and casebash think it does.
Ah, I see the issue nowâyou are assuming that Iâm saying that feminism has a model that we should directly emulate, whereas I am just saying that they are dealing with similar issues, and we have things to learn from them. In short, there are leaders in feminism who have been working on this issue, with some limited success and yes, a lot of failures. 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 didnât work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.
The key is getting that conversation started, and comparing notes. Your perception of feminism and the problems therein may change in the process, but most importantly we all may learn some important lessons that can be applied in EA (even if they do consist primarily of âhey this one solution really doesnât work, if you do anything, do something elseâ).
If you are truly 100% not convinced that we can learn this from feminism, then thatâs OK: you can talk to leaders of any other social movement instead, since many of them have dealt with and thought about similar problems. Your local union reps may be a good place to start!
âHowever, 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 didnât work? It is just as important to figure out pitfalls and failed projects as it is to try and find successful case studies.â
This is completely fair. Youâre right that I thought you were suggesting we should emulate, which on closer inspection isnât an accurate reading of your post.
With that said, my experience of talking to the âniceâ 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 canât compare notes if they donât 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 âthe external optics problem is the patriarchyâs fault, not oursâtelling us that we are ânot nice enoughâ is just a form of silencing, and you wouldnât listen to us anyway if we were ânicerââ viewpoint, but I can see how that can make this discussion difficult. Iâm just mostly hoping that the discussions on âcalling-inâ within feminism move forwardâeven a quick google search shows that itâs popping up on a lot of the feminist sights targeted to younger audiencesâit may be on oncoming change, and hopefully itâll pick up steam.
Congratulations on your engagement by the way!
This is an excellent comment that clarifies a lot. I completely agree with everything youâve said in this comment, but I also agree with AGB that, at least from an outsiderâs perspective, it is hard to find people within feminism who have ânotesâ that we could learn from. Of course, an insider like yourself would likely have a much better ability to locate such ideas.