Barb goes all the way back to RYS. Cal sent me a couple of links and I wanted to share a couple, in part to show how much I appreciated her personally:
Brava! and ditto Darla (but it is, of course, up to you, Barb. Still, this is the sort of stuff to this page for, and it generates good comment-thread conversations to boot).
Barb was not wrong. She may have put things in ways people did not like, or gotten too personal here and there, but politically, she was not wrong. I was grateful to her for saying some things I just didn't have the courage to say. Having spent my whole life as the angry lesbian, the whiner, the "she's getting political now" feminist, the psycho woman who won't shut up, I'm just tired, and sad. I left this page once and came back with a more gender-neutral moniker, but I cant' change who I am and what affects me. Ben was right, there are things that if you haven't experienced, you won't be offended by. And the proper response to having offended someone is an apology.
Come back, Barb. And we should all read the blog "Yo, Is This Racist?" for some hilarious smackdown.
Really quitting for a while now, says the addict...
Barb you will be missed. Whenever you are ready, you are always welcome to come back. I will assign my students readings and think of you when they don't do them.
Okay, I'm probably going to be thought of as a huge asshole, but here goes. I want to say in part my response is influenced by my background. I was raised in a very contentious family and you didn't have a "right" to voice any opinion that you couldn't defend. No one was polite. No one worried about anyone else's precious feelings. You argued, period. Men argued with men, women argued with women, women argued with men. Everyone arguing, all the time, about everything.
What's happening here is, as everyone knows, called a flounce. The Urban Dictionary defines it as: When a member of an online community announces they are leaving, usually after a protracted disagreement with other members of the community.
You can flounce in person, of course. In my family, flouncers automatically lost the argument. No one flounced. If someone left the room in a huff, they could expect to hear the sound of raucous, mocking laughter behind them. You lose, flouncer. You lose.
That's my personal background. But I also have to say that I've observed this sort of thing we're seeing at CM now before, more often among women. I think it's far more common for women to flounce than men. I think it's at least in part a gendered response.
And I hate to see that happen. I hate to see women work themselves up because someone, perhaps a man, has ostensibly "offended" them. It makes me squirm. It makes me squirm because it doesn't help a damned bit. It doesn't help make the flouncing woman's case. And if she's generally perceived as overreacting to me it just makes her look hysterical.
The whole "HOW DARE YOU!" and "WHY AREN'T THE MODS PROTECTING ME FROM THIS TERRIBLE PERSECUTION!" thing really just sets my teeth on edge. And as a veteran of several online communities, some of them more male, and some more female, the flounce is definitely something that women seem to do more. And women do it often when the offense is not interpreted as such by a good number of other board members. And because the woman was offended, she sees it as a fact that the offense exists, which authorities must remedy, IMMEDIATELY, or the woman in question cannot abide any further contact with the group, which is obviously tacitly approving her persecution.
Please. Oh, please. Jesus Fracking Christ. Big Girl Panties. Put them on. It's a hard old world out there. I'm a hard old broad because I have to be. I've been victimized by sexism and sizeism and ageism. But you know what? It ain't a contest about who's been the biggest victim, and making a profession of taking offense never, ever works. Especially for the person taking offense. If something bad happened to you in the past, you may not be able to get over it, but you can't get even get around it if you're going to let the memory compromise your reactions. Because I will tell you that others will definitely take your experience far less seriously if it seems to cause you to overreact.
And if you really want to see mass hysteria on an level that will make your eyes bleed, just visit a mothering board. CM is like a roomful of drugged-up grannies in comparison.
And though I have nothing against Barb, I wonder what the effect is of starting a whole thread which ends up begging her--or anyone that flounces--to come back. If she's not changed, and CM as not, won't this just happen again? Are we going to all promise not to offend her anymore?
I'm not. I'd welcome openly her participation on the board, but I'm not. I'm not because I'm not going to walk on eggshells around here, any more than I would in my own home.
This is, of course, my own opinion. I don't have any problem with anyone here but trolls. The more, the merrier. And if I offended anyone...well, I can't say I'm sorry, but I can say I'd certainly talk about it.
"And if you really want to see mass hysteria on an level that will make your eyes bleed, just visit a mothering board. CM is like a roomful of drugged-up grannies in comparison."
Change "mothering" to "parenting" and yep, that's it in a big old crazytown nutshell. Part of the reason I do not read or engage on parenting boards, despite the fact that OH and I have two knee-biters ourselves. The SAHP vs Working Parent arguments cropped up on EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD. Wasn't worth it to try to wade through all of that shite in search of useful advice.
I come here to vent, to chime in, and I've contributed to at least one other kerfluffle in my relatively brief time on this board. I didn't get involved in the most recent one, despite having opinions on it, because it wasn't worth my energy to do so--not when it was sunny and 78 degrees in my neck of the woods.
And yes, my OH and I have had to overcome a tendency to stalk off in a huff when we argue, because we grew up in households where our parents' argumentation style involved screaming and belittling and driving off with a squeal of tires. From what I read of the thread, I didn't see belittling happening. I saw people with different opinions trying to make their cases, and reacting badly to the perceived tone in others' comments.
Barb was honest, sincere, and good-intentioned. Her goal was never to fuck with our minds. I even dug up a few of those articles she recommended earlier this month. They were interesting. I wouldn't mind if more CMers included endnotes--as long as they're interesting and relevant.
Stella, you fight with your mother and I bet you feel that she loves you and respects you, from start to finish. I don't think Barb had that luxury here. Whatever was going on, I do know that sometimes a person has an immensely legitimate reason for feeling angry. Whether they have the ability or inclination to articulate that is something else.
I'm not going to run after Barb yelling, "Come back! Come back! Don't leave us!" I respect her choice to leave. And, one day, when I go into self-imposed exile from CM, I'll expect others to respect my choice.
I avoided the kerfuffle a couple of days back. I've enjoyed Barb's contributions to the blog in the past. If she wants to take some time off it's her business.
My mom is a pain in the ass. And the most selfish person I know. It would be nice if I could cut her off completely, but that's not really an option. Some people just get what they don't deserve, for good or for ill. We all have baggage.
Honestly I don't think any regular on this board is trying to fuck with us. But expecting love and respect on an internet board? Not wise. I don't expect love and support where I work, for fuck's sake, which is what this blog's all about.
CM is a place where we "share misery" but that misery is going to differ for each of us. For some of us, we're going to be at least in part the sources of misery for others. My misery at work often comes directly from the hands of my colleagues. Why should things be any different here? Yes, we commiserate, but we do not always come from the same place with regard to that commiseration.
Want me to get started on education departments, and the cretins that populate the professoriate and the student body? They're a prime source of misery for me. I'm sure me identifying them in a general sense (with a few exceptions) as "cretins" is probably offensive to the Education professors reading this. Tough. It's not a conclusion I've come to lightly, believe me.
I'm sure I've been a source of misery for some other professor, or professors. I know I've caused the administration some trouble. Certainly my students think I'm a giant bitch. What I really appreciate at CM is honesty. Being able to be honest about what I'm thinking with regard to academia, and receiving honesty in return.
Honesty that allows me to say what I think in general about Ed majors, and you to say what you think about Ravi. If the whole place pulls apart because of that, it's not much worth saving, for me.
I generally don't respect flouncers (we call them Soupers, in my internet circles), in places I inhabit on the internet, because lots of places I inhabit encourage people to stand their ground and fight. However, CM is not that kind of place. People here are pretty much encouraged to soup if they express an opinion that isn't popular with the majority of frequent commenters. I've seen it heaps of times here, and generally the reaction was "that was the right thing to do". Added to that is the email thread from yesterday and the comments about how posting anything "controversial" is "not in the spirit of the blog", and one could get the impression that arguing is utterly taboo here, and anyone who does it is required to commit ritual suicide afterwards. I agree with you that I'd rather it was honest, and that people could tolerate dissent and disagreement, but every time there's an argument, all the clothing rending moves us in the opposite direction.
I think the support here is in the form of venting about our work to people that understand our work, whether or not we support each other in particular.
Truthfully most of my friends are college professors. But even then there's something to be said for anonymity. And for perspectives from people that aren't your RL friends.
I don't know if I agree with you that people are encouraged to "soup" (never heard that before! Why "soup"?). Doesn't seem to me that CMers say "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GET OUT!" But then, that's what would seem like "encouragement" to me particularly.
Yeah, I think it is a lot more subtle than telling people to leave. I think all the high profile "so and so left because of the unpleasantness" messages add to the pressure, myself.
("Soup" because it was part of the name of an inveterate flouncer.)
I shared the news that Barb was leaving. I don't believe she did. I "flounced" her, I guess, and I didn't mean to. I just wanted to be clear that what happened on the page did actually affect whether some people stayed around.
Come back, Barb...
ReplyDeleteI hope she does, but I totally understand why she felt the pressure to leave.
ReplyDeleteBrava! and ditto Darla (but it is, of course, up to you, Barb. Still, this is the sort of stuff to this page for, and it generates good comment-thread conversations to boot).
ReplyDeleteNow if we could get "Louise" (the lady who gave me a lot of grief) back maybe the arguments could get fun again.
ReplyDelete(Not having an easy time staying on break here).
ReplyDeleteBarb was not wrong. She may have put things in ways people did not like, or gotten too personal here and there, but politically, she was not wrong. I was grateful to her for saying some things I just didn't have the courage to say. Having spent my whole life as the angry lesbian, the whiner, the "she's getting political now" feminist, the psycho woman who won't shut up, I'm just tired, and sad. I left this page once and came back with a more gender-neutral moniker, but I cant' change who I am and what affects me. Ben was right, there are things that if you haven't experienced, you won't be offended by. And the proper response to having offended someone is an apology.
Come back, Barb. And we should all read the blog "Yo, Is This Racist?" for some hilarious smackdown.
Really quitting for a while now, says the addict...
ANDREW TI IS THE MOST DELIGHTFUL BLOGGER ON THE ENTIRETY OF THE INTERNET!!!
DeleteI <3 his blog yoisthisracist.com more than anything.
Everyone go there now!!
Barb you will be missed. Whenever you are ready, you are always welcome to come back. I will assign my students readings and think of you when they don't do them.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm probably going to be thought of as a huge asshole, but here goes. I want to say in part my response is influenced by my background. I was raised in a very contentious family and you didn't have a "right" to voice any opinion that you couldn't defend. No one was polite. No one worried about anyone else's precious feelings. You argued, period. Men argued with men, women argued with women, women argued with men. Everyone arguing, all the time, about everything.
ReplyDeleteWhat's happening here is, as everyone knows, called a flounce. The Urban Dictionary defines it as: When a member of an online community announces they are leaving, usually after a protracted disagreement with other members of the community.
You can flounce in person, of course. In my family, flouncers automatically lost the argument. No one flounced. If someone left the room in a huff, they could expect to hear the sound of raucous, mocking laughter behind them. You lose, flouncer. You lose.
That's my personal background. But I also have to say that I've observed this sort of thing we're seeing at CM now before, more often among women. I think it's far more common for women to flounce than men. I think it's at least in part a gendered response.
And I hate to see that happen. I hate to see women work themselves up because someone, perhaps a man, has ostensibly "offended" them. It makes me squirm. It makes me squirm because it doesn't help a damned bit. It doesn't help make the flouncing woman's case. And if she's generally perceived as overreacting to me it just makes her look hysterical.
The whole "HOW DARE YOU!" and "WHY AREN'T THE MODS PROTECTING ME FROM THIS TERRIBLE PERSECUTION!" thing really just sets my teeth on edge. And as a veteran of several online communities, some of them more male, and some more female, the flounce is definitely something that women seem to do more. And women do it often when the offense is not interpreted as such by a good number of other board members. And because the woman was offended, she sees it as a fact that the offense exists, which authorities must remedy, IMMEDIATELY, or the woman in question cannot abide any further contact with the group, which is obviously tacitly approving her persecution.
Please. Oh, please. Jesus Fracking Christ. Big Girl Panties. Put them on. It's a hard old world out there. I'm a hard old broad because I have to be. I've been victimized by sexism and sizeism and ageism. But you know what? It ain't a contest about who's been the biggest victim, and making a profession of taking offense never, ever works. Especially for the person taking offense. If something bad happened to you in the past, you may not be able to get over it, but you can't get even get around it if you're going to let the memory compromise your reactions. Because I will tell you that others will definitely take your experience far less seriously if it seems to cause you to overreact.
And if you really want to see mass hysteria on an level that will make your eyes bleed, just visit a mothering board. CM is like a roomful of drugged-up grannies in comparison.
And though I have nothing against Barb, I wonder what the effect is of starting a whole thread which ends up begging her--or anyone that flounces--to come back. If she's not changed, and CM as not, won't this just happen again? Are we going to all promise not to offend her anymore?
I'm not. I'd welcome openly her participation on the board, but I'm not. I'm not because I'm not going to walk on eggshells around here, any more than I would in my own home.
This is, of course, my own opinion. I don't have any problem with anyone here but trolls. The more, the merrier. And if I offended anyone...well, I can't say I'm sorry, but I can say I'd certainly talk about it.
"And if you really want to see mass hysteria on an level that will make your eyes bleed, just visit a mothering board. CM is like a roomful of drugged-up grannies in comparison."
DeleteChange "mothering" to "parenting" and yep, that's it in a big old crazytown nutshell. Part of the reason I do not read or engage on parenting boards, despite the fact that OH and I have two knee-biters ourselves. The SAHP vs Working Parent arguments cropped up on EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD. Wasn't worth it to try to wade through all of that shite in search of useful advice.
I come here to vent, to chime in, and I've contributed to at least one other kerfluffle in my relatively brief time on this board. I didn't get involved in the most recent one, despite having opinions on it, because it wasn't worth my energy to do so--not when it was sunny and 78 degrees in my neck of the woods.
And yes, my OH and I have had to overcome a tendency to stalk off in a huff when we argue, because we grew up in households where our parents' argumentation style involved screaming and belittling and driving off with a squeal of tires. From what I read of the thread, I didn't see belittling happening. I saw people with different opinions trying to make their cases, and reacting badly to the perceived tone in others' comments.
Barb was honest, sincere, and good-intentioned. Her goal was never to fuck with our minds. I even dug up a few of those articles she recommended earlier this month. They were interesting. I wouldn't mind if more CMers included endnotes--as long as they're interesting and relevant.
ReplyDeleteStella, you fight with your mother and I bet you feel that she loves you and respects you, from start to finish. I don't think Barb had that luxury here. Whatever was going on, I do know that sometimes a person has an immensely legitimate reason for feeling angry. Whether they have the ability or inclination to articulate that is something else.
I'm not going to run after Barb yelling, "Come back! Come back! Don't leave us!" I respect her choice to leave. And, one day, when I go into self-imposed exile from CM, I'll expect others to respect my choice.
I avoided the kerfuffle a couple of days back. I've enjoyed Barb's contributions to the blog in the past. If she wants to take some time off it's her business.
ReplyDelete@Bubba--
ReplyDeleteMy mom is a pain in the ass. And the most selfish person I know. It would be nice if I could cut her off completely, but that's not really an option. Some people just get what they don't deserve, for good or for ill. We all have baggage.
Honestly I don't think any regular on this board is trying to fuck with us. But expecting love and respect on an internet board? Not wise. I don't expect love and support where I work, for fuck's sake, which is what this blog's all about.
CM is a place where we "share misery" but that misery is going to differ for each of us. For some of us, we're going to be at least in part the sources of misery for others. My misery at work often comes directly from the hands of my colleagues. Why should things be any different here? Yes, we commiserate, but we do not always come from the same place with regard to that commiseration.
Want me to get started on education departments, and the cretins that populate the professoriate and the student body? They're a prime source of misery for me. I'm sure me identifying them in a general sense (with a few exceptions) as "cretins" is probably offensive to the Education professors reading this. Tough. It's not a conclusion I've come to lightly, believe me.
I'm sure I've been a source of misery for some other professor, or professors. I know I've caused the administration some trouble. Certainly my students think I'm a giant bitch. What I really appreciate at CM is honesty. Being able to be honest about what I'm thinking with regard to academia, and receiving honesty in return.
Honesty that allows me to say what I think in general about Ed majors, and you to say what you think about Ravi. If the whole place pulls apart because of that, it's not much worth saving, for me.
@Stella: I give your mom an "F" for this semester. If the dean wants to challenge the grade, he can shove it up his ass.
DeleteI generally don't respect flouncers (we call them Soupers, in my internet circles), in places I inhabit on the internet, because lots of places I inhabit encourage people to stand their ground and fight. However, CM is not that kind of place. People here are pretty much encouraged to soup if they express an opinion that isn't popular with the majority of frequent commenters. I've seen it heaps of times here, and generally the reaction was "that was the right thing to do".
ReplyDeleteAdded to that is the email thread from yesterday and the comments about how posting anything "controversial" is "not in the spirit of the blog", and one could get the impression that arguing is utterly taboo here, and anyone who does it is required to commit ritual suicide afterwards.
I agree with you that I'd rather it was honest, and that people could tolerate dissent and disagreement, but every time there's an argument, all the clothing rending moves us in the opposite direction.
I think the support here is in the form of venting about our work to people that understand our work, whether or not we support each other in particular.
DeleteTruthfully most of my friends are college professors. But even then there's something to be said for anonymity. And for perspectives from people that aren't your RL friends.
I don't know if I agree with you that people are encouraged to "soup" (never heard that before! Why "soup"?). Doesn't seem to me that CMers say "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GET OUT!" But then, that's what would seem like "encouragement" to me particularly.
Yeah, I think it is a lot more subtle than telling people to leave. I think all the high profile "so and so left because of the unpleasantness" messages add to the pressure, myself.
Delete("Soup" because it was part of the name of an inveterate flouncer.)
I didn't see Barb announce she was leaving.
ReplyDeleteI shared the news that Barb was leaving. I don't believe she did. I "flounced" her, I guess, and I didn't mean to. I just wanted to be clear that what happened on the page did actually affect whether some people stayed around.
ReplyDeleteI continue to wish Barb would come back.
Thanks for the clarification, and I apologize to Barb for suggesting she is a flouncer.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she and F&T will come back! :)