I’ve purposefully stayed out of the Hugo Schwyzer/ Feministe/ Clarisse Thorn shitfest for a number of reasons. To begin with, as many of you who read me on the semi regular know, I’ve been very vocal about Schwyzer in the past. Specifically, about his silencing and bullying (yes, bullying) of WoC bloggers. I’ve also brought to everyone’s attention (on numerous occasions), his creepy stories of sex with his students and other assorted stuff that he has written about. So, my position on the subject is well known and has been for a long time. Besides, I didn’t want to further participate in something that I knew would be time consuming (time I hardly have at the moment because of different personal and professional obligations).
However, Clarisse Thorn keeps insisting she only closed those damn threads because she was genuinely concerned for the hatred directed at one person and not because she thought she had to protect Schwyzer from the ire of feminists. I chewed on that for a while hoping it would go away because it was making my blood boil. I thought she would finally realize that such an excuse didn’t hold any water. When I saw this morning that she is still using the same excuse, I just had to say something. So, this is the comment I left at the thread in question (as of this writing, the comment is in moderation):
You know, Clarisse, I would be with you in terms of not promoting hatred towards one specific individual if you were consistent in that position. A few months ago, when, in a post, Feministe quoted something I wrote, I was called all kinds of names. The shit I write was called “unreadable” and the entire thread degenerated on name calling Sady Doyle (because of course, since I am friends with Sady Doyle and I write at Tiger Beatdown it is totally legitimate to apply transitive relation and use my words as an excuse to insult her). Not only did you not say a word to stop that nonsense but you had the gall to come over at Tiger Beatdown and paste comments from that awful thread to “inform” us that this discussion was happening. Your words were “We are discussing your piece at Feministe”. At the time that came across as very invasive and a way to remove all autonomy from me to force me to engage in a discussion some place else where I have absolutely no way to moderate or deal with the ensuing hostility. You saw no problem with that, moreover, you actively promoted it and participated in it.
Cue in a couple of months later and you go out of your way to not just protect but actively shield an abuser from insults. This one man, such an important “feminist” that you go out of your way to ensure that no “hate” is allowed in the comments.
To be honest, I couldn’t give a damn that people insult me or call the “stuff I write on the internet” names. It’s bound to happen. However, your double standards are staggering. Obviously, some people, for some reason we cannot possibly know, are worth defending and closing threads for. Others are to be taunted and baited for further “polemic”. So please, at least do not try to take us for fools who just forget how you have acted in the past and pretend that the only reason you closed those threads is because you wanted to protect someone from hate. You certainly had no troubles when the hate was directed at me or Sady Doyle.
For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you. Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.