On the ongoing “Yes Means Yes!” front, Theriomorph has a thoughtful response to my post last week. In the comments section below my December 27 post, I wrote:
…feminist missiology has to operate on multiple levels. We need our radicals and our moderates, our popularizers and our theorists. We need to package our most important ideas for the mass market in a way that the mass market will find palatable.
I’d rather 97% of the people get 3% of feminism than have 3% get 97%, if that makes sense.
Theriomorph responds:
We do, however, live in a world in which a woman political activist who is white, young, economically privileged, and saying something essentially upbeat and dumbed down that is guaranteed not to rock the institutional privilege boat but instead work only on the concerns of the most privileged among us and do so in an extremely circumscribed way can sell mad books.
We live in a world in which the merit of our ideas or talents or ethical constructs is far less important than the marketing behind them, and the same people get marketed saying the same things.
First of all, let me again reject the notion that Jessica Valenti’s writing is “upbeat and dumbed down.” But we’ve been down this road before; what Theriomorph calls “dumbed down” I see as “radically accessible”; what she calls “upbeat” I see as “inspiring.” Evel Knievel on his rocket-powered motorcycle couldn’t leap the gulf in perspective that has opened up over Full Frontal Feminism. That’s disappointing.
But I’d like to expand on my short remarks about “marketing”, and the comparison between Christian evangelism and the feminist mission. In many ways, the feminist community bears a resemblance to the evangelical Christian one. Both are committed to transforming the world. Both are committed to reaching people globally with a message that is life-changing. And both communities have intense, often bitter debates about exactly how to “package the message.”
In the evangelical world, for example, one of the best-known — and most controversial — figures is Rick Warren, pastor of the huge Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. Warren’s books (especially his Purpose-Driven Life) have sold millions of copies; he has become one of the most influential figures in contemporary American evangelicalism. Some Christians, however, accuse him of “dumbing down the Gospel”, of ignoring the more difficult dictates of Scripture. The hard-line Calvinists (like, say, John Macarthur), are incensed by Warren’s success. Compare John Macarthur’s words to Theriomorph’s, quoted above:
…the church in those last ten or fifteen years has basically been in many ways co-opted or commandeered by the entrepreneurs. And the guys who can really pull it off, the guys who are the clever guys, the glib guys, the smooth communicators, the guys who are really savvy to the marketing strategy, the guys who have a lot of money at their feet who can access a lot of money and pull this off are becoming the success models for the church. And now they’re getting all the kudos, they’re selling books by the millions, they’re creating massive websites and sucking up all kinds of other pastors and churches into the vortex of these entrepreneurial kind of culturally driven quasi churches. It isn’t that everything they say is wrong. It isn’t that everything they do is wrong. It is that the church is being run by market savvy entrepreneurs. That in itself has no connection to Scripture.
I am confident I’m the only blogger who’s going to compare Full Frontal Feminism and the Purpose-Driven Life and discuss the similarities between Rick Warren and Jessica Valenti. (And I’m sure Jessica would be delighted with Rick’s royalties.) But if you’ve listened to Rick Warren and read his books, he’s not “disconnected from Scripture” as Macarthur charges; rather, he’s taken one of the most basic ideas of Christianity: that each individual life is valuable, and God calls each of us to service, and he’s made that idea comprehensible to millions. Is it the full and complete gospel? Of course not. Is it an essential part of the gospel? You betcha.
John Macarthur cares more about doctrinal purity than about actually changing the world:
I’m right now teaching through Luke 12 and the crowds based upon the language there in chapter 12 verse 1 could have numbered in the tens of thousands. He could draw the crowd, but it says there that He was talking to the disciples. And eventually what He said to the disciples caused the crowd to turn on Him, it caused some of the disciples, so-called disciples, to leave Him very early in His ministry, those who were disciples wouldn’t walk with Him anymore. But eventually the crowd not only left, the crowd came back with a roar and forced the crucifixion. So the point is this, the idea is not to draw a crowd and then to somehow redefine the crowd as a church. If you want to draw a crowd, preach…figure out how to draw a crowd, that’s fine, but make sure you preach the clear, pure, unadulterated, unmixed gospel of Jesus Christ…
Theriomorph:
And where the larger question about marketing comes in for me is in the fact that ‘the mainstream’ (shrug) wants the ramification-free-message-lite, and the involvement of cash creates one of the oldest ethical conflicts we have between ideal and practiced justice…Maybe there’s actually an alternative to whoring our issues for the man being busily practiced right now, and in the past; it just doesn’t get the same kind of attention because it makes too many demands both intellectual and concrete.
I could go on.
As I said in my original quote, the feminist movement needs its purists and its popularizers. For two millenia, Christianity has lived in very successful tension between those who wanted to win converts and those who wanted to maintain doctrinal purity. Both sides acknowledged that a rigid focus on doctrine would limit the size of the church. The early church fought over whether the Gospel was only for the Jews; they fought over whether circumcision ought to remain mandatory; they quarreled over whether the kosher purity laws were still in effect. Every time, the popularizers — those who wanted to make Christianity more accessible — won. Every time the “purists” grumbled. They are still grumbling now.
The same thing is happening in feminism. The “popularizers” and the “marketers” earn the ire of the purists, who accuse them of “dumbing down” and of dispensing with feminist essentials. The popularizers are willing to admit that their work doesn’t contain every aspect of the feminist movement. Yet they also defend the idea of compromise with the marketplace, knowing that it is through the marketplace that new converts can be found who might otherwise be turned off by the purist vision.
Of course, the purists perform a healthy function. They keep the popularizers from making too many compromises; they call the popularizers back from the brink of complete capitulation to the market. This kind of tension between the two groups is healthy. This friction, as painful as it generally is, is a necessary component of building and sustaining a political or religious movement.
I said, quoting others before me, that I’d rather 97% of the world grasp 3% of feminism than have 3% of the world grasp 97%. That’s not a false dichotomy, that’s realism. 97% of the public will never read bell hooks or Helene Cixous. 97% of the public can, however, get the idea that women are of equal worth to men. 97% of the public can eventually accept the idea that biological sex is no barrier to any form of public or private achievement. 97% of the public can come to terms with the idea that “no means no” and “yes means yes”, and that we need to do everything we can as a culture to make certain that the “yes” is never coerced.
Where I think Theriomorph and her commenters are right is that we need to have a serious conversation about what constitutes the”3%” we’re going to put out to the public. Who, in the end, are the deciders? When we reach out to the vast majority that knows nothing about feminism (or, through ignorance or misrepresentation, are hostile because of what they think they know), how do we decide what the salient talking points are going to be? If the messengers are predominantly white, young, heterosexual, abled and middle-class, that affects how the message itself will be perceived. Good marketing is about the right message and the right messengers. Jessica Valenti is one right messenger with a right message, but the feminist movement needs to work even harder to lift up messengers from non-traditional backgrounds who may have different insights and enjoy greater credibility with certain segments of the public.
The apostle Paul famously talks about the church as resembling a body. Each part of the body has different gifts, and each relies upon the other. In the Christian world, that means that the various denominations bring different things to the table: I’m grateful for the Orthodox reverence for liturgy, the Pentecostal belief that the Holy Spirit is present and working in our lives right now; the Anglican willingness to embrace subtlety; the Presbyterian reliance on intellectual rigor; the Anabaptist commitment to simplicity and peace. The global Christian community is better for its diversity. Our God leads sheep from many different folds.
So too with feminism. Amanda Marcotte, Jessica Valenti, Sydette Harry, Theriomorph, Sudy, Jeff, Sylvia, Ilyka, Chris Clarke, Jill Filipovic, Elaine Vigneault: these and so many others bring different things to the table. Not all call themselves feminists, but all write about aspects of feminism and gender justice. And though taken as a whole, the feminist blogosphere doesn’t sound like a symphony (pace, Mitt Romney), there is beauty in the cacophany. More importantly, work of substance is produced by feminist bloggers, much of it through these often painful internal debates.
We can and should do a better job of identifying promising feminist writers who come from non-traditional backgrounds. We can and should do a better job of equipping those writers to sell their work. I’m pleased that at the upcoming WAM conference, there will be workshops on just that topic. But we must beware the siren song of the purists, of those who express disdain for mass media and for the needs of the market. Change happens not by turning our backs on the market, but by embracing it.
I know well what ol’ Audre said about dismantling the master’s house with the master’s tools. But the master’s house is patriarchy; the master’s house is sexism; the foundation of the master’s house is the belief that men and women have different roles and different values. The marketplace is not the master’s; it is all of ours. And though the master’s voice has dominated that space, diverse feminist voices can and will be heard if we are willing to work hard enough, willing to market in the right ways, willing to be proactively inclusive.
UPDATE: Folks are giving me a hard time both here and at Theriomorph’s. Somehow, I failed to convey my belief that purists and popularizers have complementary, equally important roles to play. I’ll say it again: Without popularizers, without those who are willing to make challenging things digestible, movements go nowhere. And yet without purists, popularizers risk “giving away the store” for the sake of success. With both in healthy tension, a movement flourishes. I honor my non-compromisin’ friends.
And also at Theriomorph, dear Chris Clarke manages to insult me with such humor that I found myself more tickled than hurt:
Creepy, yes, and smarmy with a chewy nougat center of utter contemptuous dishonesty.* We’re talking about someone here who has perfected the apparently counterintuitive art of sucking up condescendingly.
*Do Not Eat.
That beats being called “mangina” by the men’s rights activists any day!
I am confident I’m the only blogger who’s going to compare Full Frontal Feminism and the Purpose-Driven Life and discuss the similarities between Rick Warren and Jessica Valenti. (And I’m sure Jessica would be delighted with Rick’s royalties.)
Great post! and one of the reasons it’s so blessed, fricken great is you’re the only blogger speaking two languages, when it’s babel-land to many Christians and some feminists who don’t won’t and therefore can’t talk with each other. May 97% of the ones get 3% of the others and vice versa. And, yes, more royalties to Jessica!
Disappointingly divisive selection of what to quote and what not to, Hugo, but it served your rhetorical strategy well. Rabblerousing indeed.
I agree.
Had this admission been in the call for submissions, no one would have taken issue with it.
I think that is naïve. Unless the last sentence happens, which it has not.
I would like to add a valuable feminist voice to your list: Shawna Atteberry. I had to add her, because she is one of my blogging mentors as a fellow female Christian feminist. I am frustrated with one aspect of contemporary feminism: many mainstream feminist blogs seem to paint a caricature of Christianity. Similarly, many Christian blogs like Biblical Womanhood draw a caricature of feminists. I felt a little put off by how Jessica did not capitalize the name “God” in FFF. I enjoyed the book for the most part, and have read it several times again since I first bought it last spring, but my point still stands. I am a Christian, but I feel uncomfortable reading certain blogs that seem to think most American Christians are backward “fundies.” So, the voices that try to reconcile those two ideologies are few and far between. Both feminism and Christianity benefit from writers like Sue Monk Kidd and Lauren F. Winner, who genuinely explore the message of feminism along with Christianity. I guess I am not a purist in the sense that I believe one can be against abortion but also a feminist, and that one can be a Christian but believe in ending abstinence-only education.
Theriomorph, I’m sorry you found this a divisive post. I was trying to breach a gap by suggesting that the movement needs purists and popularizers; the sense I’ve gotten is that you have some very real qualms about who and how does the popularizing. If I’ve mischaracterized your position, I’m sorry, but I don’t see how I’ve done so.
Mermade, that wasn’t intended to be an exhausting list — rather, a random selection of bloggers who represent a host of different feminist perspectives. I agree, Shawna is pretty damn cool.
Characterizing people as “purists” is a condescending way of trivializing and infantilizing the people who haven’t made the compromises the speaker has made.
Sucking up to people, whether by calling them “thoughtful” or prating endlessly about blogcrushes or whatever — doesn’t mean much if you show, by speaking down at them with judgments like “purist” that in your heart of hearts you basically have no respect for them.
It’s bad-faith arguing, Hugo, writ large.
And this “purist” is done engaging with you, on this or anything else.
One quibble.
You wrote,
“Change happens not by turning our backs on the market, but by embracing it.”
In fact, change happens for various reasons and through various methods. The market is not the only tool for social change. And how dare you act as though it is. As an educator, you know your own power for creating change. And it’s not the market.
Matthew 21:12-13 (NIV)
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
Out of curiosity, would you characterize Him here as a purist or a popularizer? How would you characterize Him in general?
Chris, I’m deeply sorry that you feel as you do. My affection for you does not, I’m glad to say, is not rooted in the hope for reciprocity. I will continue to read and delight in your blog, but out of respect, will comment there no more.
Elaine, I never said the market was the only tool for social change; it is one tool for social change. Indeed, education is a powerful locus for social change. So too are the churches. So too are alternative non-profit media outlets. Look, I’ve never liked PETA’s marketing, which I think is often sexist, but I understand why the folks from Ingrid Newkirk on down choose to use these tactics. The animal rights movement needs Ingrid, it needs Jerry Vlasak, it needs Bob Barker and Pamela Anderson and Gary Franchione. And you.
Sylvia, Jesus also says “whoever is not against us is for us”. Proof-texting from Scripture is always tricky. He is the Alpha and the Omega; “purist” and “popularizer” (which are loose categories) are terms for His followers, not for Him.
Purists take many forms, but they are categorized by one thing: a suspicion of mass-marketing techniques. Popularizers take many forms, but they are categorized by a greater willingness to reframe the message in order to reach the maximum number of followers.
I’m not here to fight the battle to defend Feministing or the Yes Means Yes anthology or FFF. I am here to defend the raison d’etre for that site and those books — and the way in which the latter have been marketed.
Hugo, what this post says to me is that the womanist/feminist/progressive bloggers and activists who are staying true to their values and beliefs and selves should learn that their role is to serve the “popularizers.” Particularly when these market-friendly spokespeople want to make sure their palatable form of feminism still has some remnants of “the cause” (whatever that means) in it.
And that is wrong on MANY levels. It’s wrong because it implies that those who are really willing to fight for their beliefs are not to be given the same consideration and attention as those who espouse what sounds to me like feminism-lite. It’s wrong because it implies that their purpose is to serve the chosen few who they may well have little to nothing in common with, in regards to their belief systems, life experiences, and motivations for writing.
Nevermind that most of the time, “popularizers” are really not engaging in any significant form of dialogue with the “purists,” let alone having open, honest conversations with them. Nevermind that these “popularizers” are not actually sharing the messages and goals that the “purists” fight so hard for.
Did it ever occur to you that not all of these bloggers are on a mission to get big shiny book deals and media attention? That some of them do this because this is only one of the ways they fight for what they believe in, and even if they never receive proper credit for the work they do, they would still be there, writing down their ideas and beliefs and dreams and continuing to make a difference? And that, at the end of the day, the role they play in creating change is for each individual one of THEM to decide?
VP, not my intent. Popularizers and purists are both needed; theoreticians and activists are both needed. We need people in the ivory tower doing theory; we need people on the phone banks manning (womanning) the domestic violence hotlines. We need the Booker T. Washington approach; we need the W.E. Dubois approach. I am a popularizer by instinct, but I know that I need those who are less willing to compromise to hold me accountable.
Back in the day, they used to chant: “We don’t want a piece of the pie, we want to bake a new cake.” I loved that line. It has a satisfying radicalism to it. But what I see now is that getting a new cake baked requires access to an oven. And getting access to an oven requires a willingness to engage those who sell the ovens, sell the flour, sell the sugar. And when you’re starving, you’re likely to prefer a piece of old pie to a theoretical cake that hasn’t been baked yet and isn’t likely to be anytime soon.
Wow. Hugo, I think you’re being very disengenous.
Feminism is a movement for social change, absolutely. I think most feminists, whether they’re theorists or activists, would agree that their ultimate goal is to change people’s beliefs and lives. So when you characterize the “popularizers” as those who are willing to reach and change a greater number of people, and the “purists” as those who are “suspicious of mass marketing,” you are saying that the popularizers are better feminists.
And, like Elaine, I take issue with your characterization of the mass market as the primary way to reach people. That’s not how I came to feminism, and not how most of my feminist friends did, either.
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2007/03/29/some-quick-thoughts-on-no/
I’m almost certain you defaulted to that statement because when you look overall at His ways, Jesus tried to blend both purity and popularity through the way He lived. He does not fit into one distinct category; neither do most people. But it’s always easy to create factions, isn’t it? That’s what He was fond of accusing most spiritual teachers of the time of doing — creating bright lines of where faith starts and where it dares not tread.
Plus through Scripture, you notice people who would generally be against the labels applied to the Son of Man in politics, trade, immutable characteristics, what have you — those people also spoke out strongly for Him and came to Him for help. And very often, the people stereotypically and visibly of His alleged “fold” were the ones who turned against him and were easily bought out. There is much more nuance to Scripture; I agree.
And here’s where I’m confused. Purists are not suspicious of mass-marketing techniques. Purists, like popularizers, want to reach the maximum number of people — however, most purists want to do so without substantially diluting or curtailing that message. Popularizers, to some extent, create problems for themselves when attempting to reframe a message because they become the purists of that reframing, the guards of that condensed and edited version of the message that gave their reframed message its substance and backbone. And then a frame forms within that frame, and these frames get narrower and narrower until 97% of the population receives 3% of the message.
That’s not healthy for any movement. The more removed a soundbyte is from its original point, the easier it is to lose sight of what’s being fought for.
As a somewhat- Calvinist myself, I will side with the purists every time. I think your dichotomy between the purists and the populizers is entirely false– there are purists who are good at PR, but the people (like Rick Warren; I haven’t read Jessica’s book so I can’t speak about her) who primarily do PR are sending an incomplete message, which I think hurts more than it helps. The best “populizers” of religion are theologians with good communication skills– Henri Nouwen, Thich Nat Hahn, and Brian McLaren are examples of this. Warren et al gets you a “religion lite” that I have seen do a lot of harm to the church I grew up in– Calvinism bastardized with evangelicalism gets you all the legalism without the humility or intellectualism. It’s the reason I left the church. Writers like McLaren are fairly rigorous (for a general-audience book) theologically, and somehow still manage to get their point across to a larger audience.
anybody who makes Christianity seem easy and simple is fluff. The original text is incredibly complex and should not be treated as anything other. The same, I suspect, goes for feminism. If you can’t convey complexity and conflict within a single argument (or a single volume) and still make it readable, maybe you should be something other than a writer.
Sylvia, I think you and I have some significant agreement here: the way in which our ideas our marketed ought to be developed more collaboratively. We’ve got to do so many things at once: we have to get a book deal (or whatever); we have to make sure that the content of the book is marketable; we have to make sure that in the process of marketing the book we don’t dilute the message to the point of uselessness: we have to make sure that as many constituencies as possible get a say in making all of this happen.
I think Jaclyn and Jessica have done a really awesome job of hearing the criticisms of their original call for submissions; that’s a consequence of this dynamic process of having these various constituencies weighing in. The anthology will be better as a result.
And you’re absolutely right that the popularizer can be the purist of the reframing. As someone who teaches a survey course on women’s history, the only course on feminist history in the whole college, I have to monitor myself very carefully here to make sure I don’t slip into doing exactly that.
Hugo, I think you probably went off on a tangent here. When I read Theriomorph, I don’t hear the issue of popularity for its own sake versus purity; I hear popularity versus inclusion. I hear a passionate protest not at what gets left out so much as who gets left out.
Obviously, aiming for popularity exposes you to what economists call a “moral hazard”, namely the temptation to pick your topics not from the most important issues but from the perceptions that your audience finds most congenial. But if you focus your presentation on what a racist, sexist, inward-turning society obsessed with trivialities finds congenial, what will you get? Whose voices will you leave out?
All social movements face these questions; environmentalists and urban activists get pressure from NIMBY groups to support measures that amount to environmental racism. Peace groups have to resist the temptation to define “peace” as the absence of conflicts that threaten or concern the “white” North and ignore massacres in the Global South. To call those who resist these siren calls “purists” distorts the issue. Environmentalism will not last long or make much difference if it degenerates into NIMBYism. We cannot long sustain a peace in the Europe and North America while massacres rage in the Global South. A movement can survive the dilution or even the rejection of hard and fast doctrines, but it cannot survive if it sweeps a whole category of people, societies, and perspectives behind a curtain.
Who cares what the tangent is, John Spragge?
Hugo’s post calls us out. And, ironic to your comment, it’s all about “who gets left out.” You can’t sit on the sidelines here like a dead white male (i.e., an Aristotle) coldly pretending to be objective.
This post is as dangerous as a parable, and as risky as an inside joke at your next party. Except it has double insiders: some of us feminists don’t get the Xnty bits; and the feminist punchline just punches some of us Christians.
Hugo’s metaphor “feminism = evangelism” is as dicey as Solomon’s baby-threatening mother-tear-jerking sword.
So, who gets left out, when . . .
Jesus Christ = a feminist
Naomi Wolf = a 13-year-old boy meeting the living Jesus
Jessica’s Full Frontal Feminism = Rick’s Purpose Driven Life
holiness and dogma = purity and feminism
marketers = shysters
including = dumbing down
complexity = simplicity
?
Michael Berube compared it to the way punk rockers accuse anyone who makes enough money to survive a “sell-out”. Funny how evangelical Christianity would have that in common with it, huh?
You know, in this vein I don’t mind being compared to The Dead Kennedys.
Hugo,
I can’t get past some of the terminology you’ve used.
Are you labeling concerns like the recognition that most people aren’t white and middle-class, are you casting that notion as a technical intricacy of interest only to purists?
And what kind of popularization is served by by selecting ideas that are targeted mainly at the wealthiest 5% of the world’s population?
Sylvia, I’m just diggin’ you so hard right now.
Hugo, look. You’ve disregarded entirely the central issues: the inherent ethical questions of particular tools, the role of antiracism practice in conversations about exclusion, and the options of inclusive gatekeeping as opposed to scrabbling for small personal success at the large expense of effective social justice dialogue. You’ve then picked up a sound-byte or two, crafted a polarized and inaccurate, if elegant, rhetorical strategy to serve your own ends, and run with it – then, when people have called you on the oversimplification (and inevitable inaccuracy), you’ve said, basically, I’m a popularizer, there’s room for all of us, everyone’s picking on me.
Thing is, you invented the dichotomy to begin with - and if you’re a ‘popularizer’ whose agenda is justice, then one would think you might be concerned with bringing something of useful and accurate substance to your audience, with direction for more information* for those who are actually interested in learning more.
If you’re interested solely in advancing your personal agenda, the strategy you’ve used here is lovely.
Seriously. Yes, you do.
This ‘purist’ often has a similar opportunity to introduce tools for critical thinking and living in the world in a just way. And when I do, what I teach is not that my blog hits and personal royalties are more important than other people’s lives. And you know what? I make choices to be sure the work I do for social justice is not *dictated* by my basic financial needs, because history shows me this is an ethical dead end. If my personal success and survival is contingent on appeasing and collaborating with the existing power structure, I will have to appease and collaborate. I make active choices, as we all do, about how I engage, what tools I choose to use, and how I use them.
This post goes way beyond disingenuous, in my opinion. It is manipulative, dishonest, and it espouses a mercenary and personally exploitative relationship to social justice issues.
That’s not a ‘frame’ many of us want or admire.
It’s particularly disappointing when someone who is in an important and powerful gatekeeping role (teaching), who also carries the most social power in this country (white male), does it. There are other available choices.
*Which does not mean a little footnote like this one saying: for brown perspectives on your own time at the end of the semester if you feel like it, I suppose you could read some bell hooks, even though she’s a bit of a nasty purist.
First off, Theriomorph, I’m not a popularizer because I need the money. I’ve got tenure, which makes me even more privileged. I get the same paycheck whether I assign Jessica Valenti or Luce Irigaray; my pedagogy and my personal survival are not in any way remotely linked. I make no money from blogging, am not paid for my submissions to various anthologies. I think I’ve made less than $1000 off writing in my entire life.
I don’t know what “personal agenda” we’re talking about here.
To get away from the “popularizer” and “purist” trope, let me say again that the eminently achievable challenge is to make difficult material accessible. That means finding ways to package important truths in ways that inspire but do not alienate. I don’t see why that means excluding anyone from the conversation about what we’re going to package and how we’re going to package it.
Look at the topics for the WAM conference, Theriomorph:
Your Best Pitch: One-on-One Advice for Pitching Editors
Writing a Book Proposal that Sells
Strategies for Making Change: Models for Progressive Feminist Media Action
How to Get Heard: The Art of Strategic Communication with Editors
At this conference, people like Jessica and Amanda and Sydette and BFP are all going to come together, and a lot of the conversation is going to be about how we popularize, how we get heard, how we sell.
Are they all mercenaries too?
I resent this constant insinuation by Hugo and Amanda that Jessica Vallenti is selling a soulless, issueless, pointless form of “populist” feminism in much the same way LaHaye & Jenkins are selling Evangelical Christianity in their “popularist” Left Behind series of books.
While there are a great many issues with regard to the ethnocentrism, classism, racism and sheer dumbness of both FFF and the concept for this new upcoming litearary catastrophe which I generally agree with, the accusation that Jessica Vallenti is raping the the most fundamental and basic concepts of feminism (pluralism, helping women, not slut shaming the victims of rape, holding men responsible for their actions etc…etc…) for the sole goal of making a quick buck.
I also object to the implication that Vallenti is aiming her books at some kind of stupid and superstitious proletariat who would, if exposed to a form of feminism that was explictly inclusive and which didn’t rest on and perpetuate the exploitation and persecution of our non-white sisters, promptly shit themselves and run away, screaming and tearing their clothes off as they attempt to escaape the curious and new sensation of “markings on paper that also represent abstract thoughts as well as sounds” that has burrowed deep into their heads, not least because it is exactly the same kind of classism that Vallenti herself engages in, but also because she is really marketing her book towards mouth breathing middle class people who object ot anything that at all threatens their preconceptions and who also prefer to spend their free time raping mexicans rather than read books.
I am all for criticisms of Vallenti’s books, but I think that we should all stop engaging in the tit for tat name calling and accusations of selling out that we indulge in when repeatedly accusing Jessica Vallenti of being like some kind of popularist evangelical writer who’s only writing so that she can make a quick buck and who advocates the mass extermination of any jew who doesn’t convert to her brand of christianity.
I mean, come on Mister whiteperson and some woman who’s name I can’t even bother to copy and paste, why should anyone take your irrational, Godwin’s Law breaking hyperventilating hysterics seriously if you can’t even be reasonable with your critcisms? It won’t cost you money to be civil now and again.
Thing is, you invented the dichotomy to begin with
Actually it’s an old dichotomy that’s been used to silence and erase leftwing and liberal evangelical voices so as to effectively kill American Christianity’s ethical roots and replace them with selfishness and superiority that better allowed evangelicalism to become an effect tool for the corporatists back during the rise of far right nationalism. Schwyzer however is under the bizarre misapprehension that the evangelical church’s criticisms of popularist evangelism that actually “dumbs down” (a sneaky term itself, considering that “dumbing down” down is really more often a form of censoring of ideas that are deemed “controversial” by authoritarian power structures who are most threatened by the ideas being censored) amounted more closely to the arguement put forth by the catholic church to the translation of the bible into local languages, such as in the case of the KJV bible.
The reason I bring this up is that the KJV is notable because it is a remarkably faithful rendition of the bible and omits almost nothing from the source texts. In fact I’m somewhat surprised that someone who has read the KJV and surely has the education to know its history didn’t bring it up. Of course, unlike the idea that Schwyzer is putting forth here; that pluralism requires (implictly) some form of “dumbing down” (a patronizing idea even if true), the basis behind the KJV’s “pluralism” was to spread both the faith and the organisational trapping of the anglican church, and wrt to the faith, the translators felt that for it to accurately spead Vox Dei it would, far from being a mere abridged translation of the latin texts used as canon up until that point, would have to be a basically complete retranslation of the greek original text into english, to ensure that the ideas contained with the KJV were as representative of the metatext as possible.
Now if we overlook the mass execution of catholics and the occupation and slaughter of the Irish by those “subtle” anglicans, the basic idea behind the KJV would strike me as a far better approach to “spreading the word” than some silly “Rape Culture For Kids” (or NAMBLA for short) or even a well written “Horrible Sociology: The Revolting Rape Culture” - and while my taoist and chan philisophical background does somewhat bias me towards the idea that you’re not really teaching a person if they don’t feel somewhat challenged to think or have their core ideas threatened if their core ideas are Wrong, a book designed to teach feminist ideas should, imho, at the very least contain something representative of the feminist ideas it’s trying to teach.
9% of the wrong philosophy, for instance the patriarchy freindly, unthreatening, unchallenging and racist aspects of white feminist thought, is worse than none of the philosophy, in much the same way advocating, as most fundamentalists tend to, that we should throw out all of the bits of the canon that we don’t consider “relevant” and focus in a monomaniacal way on a few key passages that miss out, via ommission and lazy thinking, the deeper meanings inherent to the faith in question, is worse than teaching them nothing of the faith at all.
And least ignorance can be readily cured by a complete education and a sincere willingness to learn, but a false belief is far harder to shake once it’s gotten rooted.
You know, I don’t like invoking my friends’ names without knowing how they feel about a certain subject. I don’t appreciate how casually you’re bringing their names in here, as if you’re certain that the extent of this discussion is about book deals for everyone. Especially when you’re asking if they’re all “mercenaries.” They’re there to learn from the conference, yes, but they’re also there to present and teach. To depict their future attendance at WAM as if they’re going for the juicy publishing tips is unbelievably dishonest.
Because both of them (Sydette and BFP) have said many times in many flowery words that they are interested in how feminism being sold and marketed affects all the women that these trinkets are supposed to be representing. I see, Hugo, that you still haven’t learned from the underhanded attack of painting women of color as harping opportunists.
And I feel like a complete moron belle’ng like this, but there you go:
ONE MORE THING; It should be understood that outside this whole notion of “educating the masses” (and it ain’t gonna be no manifesto, because Vallenti lacks the empathy and compassion neccesary for that sort of love note to the oppressed) validating the idea of false pluralism by making it part of an attempted “popularist” text, that is to say, talk of pluralism without pluralism as action to compliment it, empwers the marginalisation and oppression of POC, including WOC, and will afect people’s lives.
This is why people are snotty about it, a point that I feel be pointed out that some people don’t seem willing or able to get if left merely implicit within the subtext of criticisms of Vallenti’s books.
Screwing over people worse off than yourself = A bad thing, imho, though other people’s mileage may vary.
Mildred, you go right over my head. I am a bear of far too small a brain to grasp whatever it is you’re trying to do with clever and deliberate misspellings. I’m not being facetious, I just really don’t get it. Satire confuses me; irony escapes me.
Sylvia, I never called anyone a harping opportunist, for goodness’ sake. The point of WAM is about feminists engaging the media, which I think is good. Words like “mercenary” and “opportunist” are used by those who distrust the process of engagement with the media and the market.
One of the reasons why I’m coming to WAM is because I’m so darned excited by these workshops; not for my own aggrandizement, but because I want to come back with tools for my own students to use in getting their own voices out there.
Fair enough. I ought to have been clearer that I know many people are going to WAM for many different reasons. Obviously, the attendees and presenters represent a diverse spectrum within feminism, with varying degrees of comfort with the talk of “book deals” and the like. I have no particular knowledge of anyone’s particular reasons for going; if I implied otherwise, I am sorry and withdraw the insinuation. As far as I know no one is going for “juicy publishing tips” alone.
On the other hand, a desire to be a successful, money-making writer doesn’t vitiate anyone’s progressive feminist credentials. It’s not a zero-sum game; a given feminist writer can make some money without automatically depriving other deserving folks. A rising tide really can lift all boats. (Damn, now you’ve made me sound like some hopeless supply-sider.)
Hugo, you continue to *make* this a conversation about personalities, when the personalities involved keep trying to make the conversation about the issues.
Which effectively evades the issues, and actively increases the divides.
In reacting with personal defensiveness to the question of not allowing the (bigoted, limited) market to *determine* our social justice conversations and teaching, you either misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued what I said. I put it in the first person voice because it is my practice and my ethic, and one I believe needs further discussion as the ‘progressive’ left increasingly demonstrates its own failure to place the well being of all above the well being of the individual. It’s called corruption. It’s an age old problem. It is complex and difficult to solve. Far better minds than yours or mine have failed to address it fully.
What is mercenary is defending (or avoiding the discussion of) corruption in order to justify one’s existing privilege, and doing so at the expense of the people one I do think it is mercenary to ‘reframe’ as ‘jealousy’ or ‘purism’ their (or my, or anyone else’s) legitimate criticisms of the *approaches* of privileged feminists who globalize what is in fact a privileged and narrow view of one small arena of feminist social justice work.
You ‘framed’ me as too much a purist to sully myself with such lowly activities as effective production of feminist books, for example: I wonder if you could process the information that I teach the very workshops - nearly by name, if with less a focus on manipulating the system than ethical engagement with individuals, which editors are - you list as being on the WAM agenda? I guess that would make the argument too messy and nuanced. It would reduce my effectiveness as your foil.
Successful publishing doesn’t require ’selling out’ the work itself.
Publishing high quality work does require doing high quality work.
And you know what? The internet not only didn’t invent these issues, it has not contributed much to their resolution.
And boy howdy, neither has this conversation.
Spend some time outside of privileged spheres, read some Plato, read some Freire, do some listening to the experiences of the majority of the people on this planet, spend some time actually working with people in poverty, crisis, violence before crediting a blog or an ad campaign with the power to transform the world. Thousands of years of experience show effective social change is more complex than that. Basic social justice principles show that the same people saying the same things in the same way does not move us forward. Refresh yourself with what the legitimate criticisms of the call for submissions (not Jessica herself, regardless of your efforts to make it appear otherwise) were.
It might also behoove you to not presume you know the backgrounds, professional successes, nuanced experiences and capacities, agendas, commitments, motivations, hearts, or minds of those you co-opt into your argument or presume to be your adversaries or allies or readers. Imagine Nelson Mandela (or some other complex, nuanced culture hero of demonstrated, practiced, high-risk long-term social justice work lived with their feet as much as their mouths) comes in from gardening one evening, starts surfing the blogosphere, and agrees with some of what I said about the ethical concerns involved in adopting marketing and propaganda techniques for social justice work. Or hates what I said, but still thinks the call for submissions was problematic as hell. Is he just jealous of Amanda’s book deal or Jessica’s blog? Hugo, I don’t think so.
It’s about the issues, not the people - and you don’t know who’s engaging, or with what. A little humility goes a long way.
We are all really very small. There is no need to also be petty.
Accidental deletion of the end of a sentence in the 4rth P. Should have shown:
What is mercenary is defending (or avoiding the discussion of) corruption in order to justify one’s existing privilege, and doing so at the expense of the people one claims to champion.
Drat. That whole paragraph got scrambled, actually. Shows me for not composing in Word. What it originally said:
What is mercenary is defending (or avoiding the discussion of) corruption in order to justify one’s existing privilege, and doing so at the expense of the people one claims to champion.
No, I do not think bfp and Sydette are mercenary in their approach to social justice work. In everything I see from them, they both apply an extremely high standard of ethics to their writing and thinking.
I do think it is mercenary to ‘reframe’ as ‘jealousy’ or ‘purism’ their (or my, or anyone else’s) legitimate criticisms of the *approaches* of privileged feminists who globalize what is in fact a privileged and narrow view of one small arena of feminist social justice work.
Gosh, there’s so much to respond to — especially with BFP’s long post to mull. And I have packing to do and a leaky roof to deal with.
I have done my best not to characterize bfp and Sydette as jealous. And I do wish I had another word other than “purist”. Perhaps “those who are less willing to downplay certain essentials in order to construct a short marketable primer” would do instead? Or “those who are convinced intersectionality must always be part of a discussion involving women and sexuality”? Those are problematic too. I’ll see what I can come up with.
And be careful not to presume too much about my background. Yes, I’m a white male academic from a modestly privileged family; I have tenure, I’m straight and healthy and all that. And a long-term struggle with the disability of alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness doesn’t vitiate that privilege.
Spend some time outside of privileged spheres, read some Plato, read some Freire, do some listening to the experiences of the majority of the people on this planet, spend some time actually working with people in poverty, crisis, violence…
Okay, I read a tiny bit of Freire, but not much. I teach Plato every damn semester in my Western Civ class, and I’ll be happy to talk about the Republic with you when and if we ever meet. And I’ve done the missions work in Mexico, I’ve gotten the giardia from living in rural Colombia, and I can find my way around South Los Angeles pretty darned well, thanks.
I don’t just pontificate in the classroom. I’ve done youth work for years and years — and not just with privileged white high schoolers. I’ve worked with pregnant teens in a variety of outreach programs in underprivileged areas. I’ve been to God knows how many clinics with scared young women. I’ve taught workshops on sexual harassment to sullen angry young men who call me “faggot” to my face over and over again. That volunteerism doesn’t make me a wonderful human being, and maybe it is just white guilt or noblesse oblige in your eyes — but I have lived out my values outside the confines of the classroom and the comforts of my home.
But there I go personalizing this again. There’s a lot here to think about.
The chance is high that I have a blind spot around race and class that I don’t have around virtually any other issue. I’ll do some reflecting on that this week.
And I cannot emphasize enough how unimpressed I am by you being called a fag. I mean you’re trying to claim that what? being called gay by a high school student is akin to the forced sterilization of native and black women or that it’s akin to seeing your friends and family arrested and thrown in prison because the police don’t care about being specific as long as they can arrest some black person.
You have not risked dying of dehydration crossing the border, you have not felt fear at the sound of police sirens despite your innocences, You have not wept at the stresses involved with tyring to pay for a court case, or suffered the symptoms of poisoning because your boss doesn’t follow enviromental health policies, you have not slept in a dirty alleyway with one eye open in case some random passerby takes it upon themselves to rape you, you have no fucking idea what hardship fucking is you little pissant.
And how the fuck dare you try to grab validation for your weak ass strawmen by erasing the existence of real fucking suffering so you can claim you have felt the freezing chill of the summer night or the stare of an official who isn’t even bothering to hide the fact he thinks you’re the lowest form of scum on earth from his eyes.
Who the fuck are you to claim, in Jesus’ most randomized name no less, that you know “the market”, while pointing to the mere normativity of erasing non-white, non-middle class voices as proof of that?
Take this homeopathic bastard feminism of yours and Vallenti’s and sail it up your fucking asses.
Wow, Mildred, did you and I ever read his last comment differently.
What R. Mildred and Sylvia said.
Apparently not.
The one thing about this conference in my opinion is that they’re lucky to have women like Sydette and BFP presenting in its midst. Very lucky. I wish it was closer than in Boston.
I find it fascinating that you can say “I know well what ol’ Audre said about dismantling the master’s house with the master’s tools” and then say “the feminist movement needs to work even harder to lift up messengers from non-traditional backgrounds who may have different insights and enjoy greater credibility with certain segments of the public” almost simultaneously.
And by fascinated I really mean “appalled.”
Does anyone else remember that Audre helped to create a publishing house solely devoted to the work of women of color? Almost thirty years later, it is as if nothing has changed within “feminism”.
I hear (or read) a number of participants in the on-line community telling me things that lead me to conclude the that critical parts of he issue that they perceive get left out in Hugo’s argument. So as somebody who has some history, a certain amount of work, and a little personal risk invested in justice, I care.
Who do you mean by “us” here? What do you mean by “calls us out”? (BTW, calling someone out literally refers to a nineteenth century practice for arranging duels, and I don’t believe it has any place in the risk-free world of internet debate.) In any case, I question the entitlement of Hugo to issue challenges from his position of privilege.
Coldly? In the words of Herman Kahn, “would you prefer a nice warm mistake?” Objective? Hardly. I clearly acknowledge my point of view, a particular person hearing and interpreting what other people have to say. Aristotle? Whatever.
I read a bunch of bloggers who identify as women of colour and who say they get left out. My own very limited experience with justice issues demands that I pay attention.
I’ve got a post in moderation at BFPs about this because it makes more sense when you read Audre Lorde’s actual words and BFPs comments about what movement building is all about. I should, however, address this to you directly, Hugo. The way you built your metaphor here, although tempting and pretty and all that, is a key to why you are missing the point of both Lorde’s quote and the comments of women in color and their allies. So here’s an editing of what I said there:
There is no activism in your feminism. Activists simply don’t exist.
Let’s take your Christianity metaphor. I want to be careful that I’m not attacking the Christian ideals or all Christian religions in general in the following. What I’m hoping to do is highlight a point you continue to ignore.
Rick Warren is a Christian. He isn’t one individual who wrote a book and got it marketed. In fact, Warren has created an enormous apparatus. Warren has built a huge movement and a compelling fad with cheerleaders and letter jackets and team pennants and a TV contract. To compare Jessica’s one published book by a small press to the kind of apparatus Warren has created is mind boggling.
In terms of Christianity, I would put Warren and more traditional religions in the same category. Not because they share a philosophy about Jesus Christ, but because they share the ethic of building a huge apparatus called religion that benefits some while screwing others. Then they put up a pretty screen that prevents them from seeing the people they’ve screwed.
Contrast the religious apparatus builders with Christians who build communities and live the life that Jesus modeled. Christians who, every day, make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate. Christians who donate time and energy in changing the world for the better, inspired by the message of Jesus.
Yes, those activist Christians may have learned about Christianity through those huge corrupt religious entities, but they practice that message by focusing outside the apparatus. They walked out of the heavy doors of the church and into the streets.
Hugo, you are not even see the door, much less choosing to walk through it.
So that’s the criticism. Here’s the suggestion: step outside the traditional, market-driven, USian concept of being a feminist. Learn how to build a community of activists and equals. Learn from the people who are ALREADY doing it. Introduce your students to those people. Bring some of those ideas and tactics into your classroom.
Sure, read Frere to help you start thinking this way. But most of all, walk out the door. It’s wonderful out here. You’ll love it.
Thanks for your blog re purists and popularizers. Not many people have an appreciation for the different roles people play in any given issue - be it feminism, Christianity, environmentalism, etc. Therefore, we tend to spend a lot of time cutting each other down instead of working together to a common good. Myself, I’m a popularizer - a compromiser. I need people to be purists, to call a spade a spade, to call people to account. Without the purists, I tend to become wishy-washy to the point of having nothing to say. This is not condescending, its just an appreciation of the fact that no one person can be everything to everybody.
Wonderful post Hugo, just wonderful.
I have recently gotten involved in some real world activism, and although I left the church many years go, I strongly believe that Christian evangelism has much to offer in guidance to activists.
My girlfriend is the leader of a struggling branch of a political party, and although she is atheist she can see the value in so much of what Christians do, and the way they think, that attracts new people to the movement.
This post has even further defined my perspective on evangelism’s offering to secular movements.
Hugo,
You are wrong about the parallels between feminism and Christian evangelism. You are wrong about the pertinence of your distinction between purists and popularizers. Finally, your characterization of the Gospels, crafted to support your arguments, is faulty.
All popular movements, including organized expressions of hate, aim to transform the world. Although, in your mind, there may be a closer association between feminism and Christian evangelism because you support both, the differences are far more significant than the similarities.
Feminism is not based on faith. Its premises, beginning with the principle of the equality of the sexes, are reasoned conclusions. Feminism does not seek to convert individuals; it seeks to reason persuasively with them. If you try to fudge this distinction, you do a disservice to feminism and Christian faith alike.
While individual evangelical churches or communities may be comfortable with feminist ideas, the history of the American evangelical movement has been blackened right up to the present day by its willingness to harbor misogyny and homophobia. Your idealized version of Christian evangelism cannot substitute for the historical reality.
Christian evangelism is part of the American mainstream; feminism is not, particularly when you are talking about articulate and inclusive feminisms rather than vague platitudes about equality. While it is common practice for evangelicals to denounce mainstream culture as an immoral and unwholesome influence, this is a put-on, and the target is every part of the mainstream except for evangelism.
***
Articulations of the truth cannot be divided in two; the integrity and power of an idea cannot survive every kind of translation. Luce Irigaray is not a very clear writer: that is her loss and ours. If another writer can be clearer, so much the better for the movement. Also, it is to be expected that different writers will write in different styles. But when you begin to lend vagueness, simplicity, or agreeability the virtues of clarity, you are equating two very different things: stylistic difference, and differences of ideology. All of these debates within the feminist blogosphere have concerned the latter.
These distinctions are equally bad applied to aesthetics. There is nothing compromised about Charles Dickens or Madonna; similarly, there is nothing respectable about the success The Secret or Nickelback have enjoyed. Pat Boone popularized “Tutti Frutti” in the short term by ruining it; in the long run, Little Richard’s original recording is the one that has proved immortal.
The whole text of Matthew cries out against what you have written. To begin with, you have misquoted the Bible. You write:
As you must be aware, this reverses the emphasis of the original: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
I do not regard the New Testament as a historical or supernatural document. I do, however, regard it as one of the most compelling articulations of an integral worldview that the West has produced, and I am dismayed that you would be so untroubled by its calls for living with integrity.
Does it say there are purists and popularizers? No, but rather “strait is the gate and narrow the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be who find it.” While I am sympathetic to the difficulties involved in “proof-texting” the Bible, this is not an ambiguous statement.
Complaints about the difficulty of radical texts are, often as not, disguised complaints about their content. Nobody has trouble assigning difficult scientific works to undergraduates pursuing a career in science; no-one expects calculus to be “accessible,” as we use the term today. Nonetheless, we expect every high school student, and not just an imaginary 3%, to be capable of understanding calculus. A lot of complaints about feminist theory are born of discomfort with feminism. The situation is similar to the inconsistent way pundits deal with the physical size of political documents. The Clinton health plan (from 1994) was ridiculed by conservatives for being 1,300 pages long; Bush’s tax plan, however, which received conservative support, was over 700 pages long.
Joseph, your post seems to rest entirely on preferring Matthew to the other two synoptic gospels.
Mark 9:40: “for whoever is not against us is for us.”
You can make a lot of errors relying on only one Gospel. There are four for a reason.
Luke 9:50:
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
I’ll answer your Matthew with one Luke and one John. And prooftexting will carry us into the next presidential administration.
This conspicuously avoids dealing with the conversation about the relationship between feminist and evangelist movements, as well as the conversation about the supposed difficulty of feminist texts.
Meanwhile, the quotations from Mark and Luke are simply irrelevant to the situation we are trying to discuss. Matthew is, in fact, applicable, because it is includes discussions of unity with a movement and textual difficulty. The sense of Mark and Luke 9 is “do not interfere with fellow travelers;” this is not an inclusive moment in either gospel, much less a vision of a coalition based on mutual support. In Mark, that moment is followed by a remarkable sermon on purification.
It’s not just the Bible that demands close, attentive readings; all worthwhile texts demand it. Substituting glancing references in the service of an argument may produce the illusion of time saved, but it leaves undetermined whether broad claims (here about the relationship between Christian doctrine and the conversation with nonbelievers) have any foundation at all.
This should read: “Matthew is, in fact, applicable because it touches on unity within movements and on textual difficulty.”
Joseph, I’m deliberately taking time away from writing on the feminist-evangelical comparison. After the past two weeks — and all the attention and opprobrium directed towards this post — I’ve made the decision to reflect quietly until I know exactly how to respond. I don’t want to be defensive or prematurely apologetic. This hiatus will likely extend into February.
As for Scripture, I think Luke and Mark are immensely relevant to the notion of coalitions. What’s the goal? To cast out demons, to rid the world of evil spirits. Whoever does this does the right thing, even if they aren’t members of the “right” group. Most folks take the Lucan passage to mean that common goals can be achieved by diverse coalitions. In Luke, this comes right after the argument about who will be the greatest, which is not far from the argument about who is the best and the purest.
I assure you that I do do more than make glancing reference to the texts. I’ve lived with and wrestled with these texts for a very long time, as I am sure you have as well.