I'm in this ambivalent spot, where I am -- by virtue of my birth and upbringing -- a stereotypical middle-class white male nerd. In no way am I saying this to "turn the tables" on you and be all like "owlmoose, I am totally an oppressed minority, how dare you." I bring up this point only to point out: my "class" has a lot of really icky cultural baggage, and that class more often-than-not employs said cultural baggage in very specific, offensive ways (and I use offensive in both meanings of the term).
This applies to both fandom, but also -- and please believe, the following aside really does have a point -- academia, where I happen to work. Academia -- and let's take history here, because that's the field I'm intimately familiar with -- has really been a white, middle- to upper-class ball game for a long, long time. And that it's evolved into something more than that is because minorities -- non-whites, women, the poor (and the last isn't really a minority, but you get the point) -- have stood up and spoke Truth to Power.
But to "speak", to effect real change, you really need to have two things going for you, at least in the field of history: evidence, and a voice, i.e. the ability to project your message. If you can increase both, you increase the weight, or the gravity of your message. But let's face it, historians often have just one or the other: we have a really well-researched but boring argument, or we're totally iconoclastic, often at the expense of hard-and-fast evidence. (And that isn't saying that controversial arguments, by default, have no evidence. But it is a tacit admittance that the "archive" we historians draw on is a socially- and historically-constructed conceit that reflects the power dynamics operating in the real world. Boiled down: we don't preserve evidence that tells a story contrary to the Story.)
So what ends up happening is the most influential works are often not that well researched, because they are actually calls for more research. Take Orientalism, for instance. Hella important, with hella alot of problems.
Anyways, what does this have to do with Doyle? I really respect that she, in essence, said "Internet, and ASoIaF fans, there are some serious problems with how these books deal with the issues of gender, and rape, and women. And we need to talk about these this, because I believe that not facing these problems makes all of us a little less human."
Okay, the last part was my own, but you get the point. There's something heroic about the lone gunslinger who walks into town and says "I'm calling you out!"
But the problem with all of this is: this is the Internet, where anyone can tune in and anyone can tune out. And when you construct an argument with vitriolic and found it on the premise that the people you're talking down to are incapable of self-critique, it's like blood in the water, and Really Terrible People come out of the woodwork to "engage" with it. And the more intellectual types -- well, at least me -- get turned off by such theatrics.
Aaaaaannnnndddd yet... if Sady Doyle had worded her argument nicely, and had been forceful but understanding and thoughtful and empathetic, would be talking about her now? Probably not.
no subject
This applies to both fandom, but also -- and please believe, the following aside really does have a point -- academia, where I happen to work. Academia -- and let's take history here, because that's the field I'm intimately familiar with -- has really been a white, middle- to upper-class ball game for a long, long time. And that it's evolved into something more than that is because minorities -- non-whites, women, the poor (and the last isn't really a minority, but you get the point) -- have stood up and spoke Truth to Power.
But to "speak", to effect real change, you really need to have two things going for you, at least in the field of history: evidence, and a voice, i.e. the ability to project your message. If you can increase both, you increase the weight, or the gravity of your message. But let's face it, historians often have just one or the other: we have a really well-researched but boring argument, or we're totally iconoclastic, often at the expense of hard-and-fast evidence. (And that isn't saying that controversial arguments, by default, have no evidence. But it is a tacit admittance that the "archive" we historians draw on is a socially- and historically-constructed conceit that reflects the power dynamics operating in the real world. Boiled down: we don't preserve evidence that tells a story contrary to the Story.)
So what ends up happening is the most influential works are often not that well researched, because they are actually calls for more research. Take Orientalism, for instance. Hella important, with hella alot of problems.
Anyways, what does this have to do with Doyle? I really respect that she, in essence, said "Internet, and ASoIaF fans, there are some serious problems with how these books deal with the issues of gender, and rape, and women. And we need to talk about these this, because I believe that not facing these problems makes all of us a little less human."
Okay, the last part was my own, but you get the point. There's something heroic about the lone gunslinger who walks into town and says "I'm calling you out!"
But the problem with all of this is: this is the Internet, where anyone can tune in and anyone can tune out. And when you construct an argument with vitriolic and found it on the premise that the people you're talking down to are incapable of self-critique, it's like blood in the water, and Really Terrible People come out of the woodwork to "engage" with it. And the more intellectual types -- well, at least me -- get turned off by such theatrics.
Aaaaaannnnndddd yet... if Sady Doyle had worded her argument nicely, and had been forceful but understanding and thoughtful and empathetic, would be talking about her now? Probably not.