"There is difference and there is power. And who holds the power decides the meaning of the difference." --June Jordan

Monday, July 28, 2008

A Crowded House: My Newly-Revised Blogroll

You may or may not have noticed that the blogroll has finally been updated. Lots of blogs added, broken links repaired, and some seemingly defunct sites removed. As I mentioned here, if you have or know of a blog to which I should be linking, let me know in comments or shoot me an e-mail at trrrracey(at)gmail(dot)com.

My first inclination was to break up the blogroll into separate categories of social activism: feminism, anti-racism, disability rights activism, queer activism, fat acceptance, etc., but it was just too difficult. Due to a lovely little thing called intersectionality, there's naturally too much overlap for me to feel like I have the authority to decide which box to put people in. And since I don't want to be in habit of shoving people into boxes, I just put them all together in one big alphabetical melting pot of social activism. The titles alone are usually enough to identify what each blog is about, and since every site on the list is at the very least anti-sexist, I don't feel the need to separate out the blogs that are expressly devoted to feminism from those that are more focused on other issues.

The links on the blogroll do not represent any one particular brand of feminism or social activism, and their presence on the blogroll does not mean that I agree with everything these bloggers have to say. But when I was faced with the prospect of removing links to certain blogs or leaving off some of the blogs I read, I found that I just didn't want to. I like having links to feminists of color, radical feminists, liberal feminists, pro-woman feminists, pro-feminist men, anti-racists, sex-positive feminists, sex-workers, queer feminists, transgender feminists, womanists, pro-Hillary feminists, pro-Obama feminists, feminism 101, pop culture critics, "big" blogs, "little" blogs, etc. I don't plan to stop reading them, so I don't plan to omit them from the blogroll. Click away, read for yourself, and develop your own opinions.

To best explain why I chose to include all of these voices despite their contradictions, allow me to quote liberally from the kickass blog Pop Feminist:

My obsessive consumption of feminist literature and political ideology has left me tangled in many equally valid and contradictory schools of thought in the movement, the surface of which is but scraped! If I am therefore dismissed as "confused", at least the label is just. Who isn't?

The only way I can think to grope along the walls of this crude tunnel is by speaking and writing about feminism as much as I can stomach it, utilizing every platform available to refine my thoughts and hope to find truths forged in the fires of debate.

If the above sentiment reads as lofty, that's because the goals of feminism are just that. To imagine that one form of feminism is the one pathway to a complete overhaul in gender-hierarchy and human injustice, you're dreaming. The fact is: feminism, as it stands today, isn't good enough.

It falls short on all counts: symbolism, theory, politics, aesthetics, inclusiveness, coherence, draw, and the list goes on.

This goes without saying. So it is with virtually all movements, though my sense of feminism's inadequacy is piercing because it is the ideology with which I align. The underlying idea, which I define broadly as "the belief in women's fulfillment as human fulfillment", is the only thing I know for sure. Everything else is the process through which I can best live this belief and extend its reach.


To my 29 feed-subscribers who are probably reading this in their blog readers, take a second to click on over to the site and check out some links you may not already know about. (And thanks for subscribing!)

More from the wise Pop Femimist:
I declare: more voices not less, open doors not closed, exchange not embargoes, and joy not despair is the only way for us.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan. You know I was so looking forward to a section for prostitutes only. Maybe I'll have to make my own sex-worker blogroll category just for fun.

Daisy Deadhead said...

So thrilled to be included! :)

I don't divide my blogroll into categories either, since I know some people simply won't look at something they think they "don't agree" with, so if the links are just listed altogether with no designations, they might accidentally stumble onto something they like! Yes, it's a subversive act! Down with the constant tagging and sorting of humans! And I love it when others do the same.

Thanks again for the inclusion. I'll be including you and Ms. Pop Feminist!

Tracey said...

Daisy: I'm just sorry I didn't add the link sooner. I've been reading you for months, but it's maybe been a year since I've even touched the blogroll!

Tracey said...

dumplin': Sex-workers are included in the mix. You'll just have to visit all of the links to figure out who they are.

Rachel said...

Hurrah. Glad to have an ally in pluralist feminism!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for including me! I'm in the process of adding a blogroll to my page, and this is a good way to do it as well. Keep on fighting the good, good fight.

VW said...

Oh so belatedly - thanks for including me on your blogroll. Not sure how you found me but I am very glad to have been found. And will gladly return the favor.

Thanks!