I Only Read Men on Feminism (on Lies, Damned Lies and the Internet)

Admittedly I was a little taken aback when I learned that I only read men when thinking about issues regarding sexual difference. At least this was according to an article that a good friend sent to me. In it I discovered that I didn’t read woman because of the bias they have and preferred to stick to non-biased men,

 

Some months ago, I had an online exchange with a couple of other women and author Peter Rollins. What started the conversation was his tweet that he only reads men in regard to feminism.  I pointed out that if he wanted to know what actual women have to say about ourselves, he needed to read some women who write about feminism.  He explained that he doesn’t read what women have to say about feminism and faith because of the “bias” those women have.  I could go on forever about the irony of claiming that cis white men are unbiased, and I could also point out that I never instructed him to read Christian feminists–merely that he should read the work of women feminists.   We left it with the open possibility that he “might” read some of the recommended writers. I was justifiably angry that a man thought it was okay to inform me that we women are “biased” while men are not.  Instead of listening to me or the other women involved in that discussion, several other men began tweeting at me that I should stand down because Rollins is a “nice guy” who means well. (You can read the rest here)

 

I tried not speaking to myself for a while, after all I was being a total ass! In this online conversation I had admitted that,

 

I don’t read woman who write about feminism

That I claim woman have a bias that men don’t

That I “might” read woman on the subject of feminism someday (“might” was in brackets so that must have been a direct quote)

.

I felt bad because the person who I had been chatting to hadn’t even asked me to read Christian Feminists but simply pleaded with me to read some woman!

After giving myself the silent treatment I thought that I should give myself the benefit of the doubt and go in search of this online conversation. After all I was pretty sure that I had caught myself reading woman in the past. I could have sworn that I’d seen myself immersed in Kristeva, Irigary, Cixous, Butler, Althaus-Reid and Daly. And was I not reading Malabou’s The New Wounded last week in a coffee shop? Something just wasn’t adding up.

So I found the conversation and pieced it together as best I could (there is a little doubling up as its hard to get it all in, as well as some of it being out of sequence due to the difficulties of re-creating the conversation via twitter feeds). I guess I learned the lesson that I shouldn’t believe everything I read about myself on the web. Turns out the only man I mentioned was the comedian Bill Hicks by light-heartedly quoting how he supported woman in Christian leadership and that it only meant more people for him not to listen to.

The person who made the claims is Amy Mitchell. Oh and it turns out she did ask me to read a Christian Feminist (contrary to her claim ‘and I could also point out that I never instructed him to read Christian feminists–merely that he should read the work of women feminist’ – unless the word ‘follow’ is to be taken literally).

 

UPDATE: Amy has claimed in her blog comments that I have selectivly picked the tweets below, only using a select few that would seem to go against her claims (above). If I have not included everything that Amy and I said then it was purely because I was trying to piece it all together via twimemachine. However this link goes to the full exchange (at least as far as I can tell). Which, By the way, at the time seemed nice and friendly.