In response to this post, (which was a response to this advice I gave to a young female aspiring artist) someone said:
"he chose to hijack my post, make fun of what I wrote and how I wrote it, make fun of my work, and belittle me and my positive attitude to make his point."
“Instead of just expressing his opinions, he decided to try and invalidate my experience, my honesty, my positivity, and my work with hateful parody.”congratulations! you now know 1% of how it feels to be a woman! every single time women decide to share original content, whether it be a comic, blog, tweet, facebook post, email, or by talking, there is some man out there waiting to pounce by doing all of the above. i will postulate, however, that john didn’t actually do that, but how you felt about what you think he did, yeah, congratulations. check out @everydaysexism on twitter. this shit happens every moment of every day in the life of a woman. then try not to be fearful or have ‘doom and gloom’
"There is no webcomics “industry.”" doesn’t matter, there is a misogyny industry and it’s called the world and the internet. pretty sure comics exist in the world and on the internet, therefore the industry that john is describing is an everpresent reality for 50% of the population.
Where do I even begin with this? Someone was rude to me on the Internet, so “CONGRATULATIONS BUT WOMEN HAVE IT WORSE!” I am a straight, white male. Does that put me on the lowest difficulty setting for life? Yes. I am also able bodied, free of debilitating mental illness, not addicted to drugs, not physically or mentally abused on a regular basis, and happily married to a woman who I love and who, in return, loves me. Does that make things EVEN EASIER for me? I would argue that as difficult lives go, mine is less difficult that in could be given the grand spectrum of human suffering. Does any of that invalidate my feelings or experiences? It does not.
When someone is a jackass and aims that jackassery in my general direction, and I choose to call them out on it or (at the very least) express my disappointment with them or my displeasure at their words/actions, it is not for an uninvolved stranger to suggest that my view points are invalidated by their perception of my privilege. I’ve had an entire life, of which this stranger knows few to none of the details, with which to form my outlook and opinions. At the same time that I am a straight, white male (and all of the other “easy mode” attributes I listed above), I am also:
-The child of a drug addict (now deceased)
-A child who grew up without a father
-A survivor of depression
-Someone who suffered with chronic pain for a decade
-Someone who was raised in a mentally and verbally abusive household
And those are just the Cliff’s Notes. Now when I express an opinion, should I also provide this list of “suffering credentials” just to make sure my whiteness and maleness and straightness don’t get in the way of anyone taking me seriously?
"every single time women decide to share original content, whether it be a comic, blog, tweet, facebook post, email, or by talking, there is some man out there waiting to pounce by doing all of the above."
If this is true, it is because it is true of all people, all races and all genders. You can boil this down to, “Every time someone decides to share original content… there is someone out their waiting to pounce (and shit all over their hard work because they are too afraid, too angry or just too miserable to do anything else).” I would argue that John’s original comments and your follow up illustrate this point beautifully.
As a content creator, I have encountered rudeness and condescension (you might be familiar with that last one) like I would have never imagined possible from actual human beings. People that think they know exactly what you’re all about just based on what color and gender you are. People that think the silly picture you put on the Internet, or the post you made somehow entitles them to talk down to you like a disapproving parent or boss (again, this might start to sound familiar).
check out @everydaysexism on twitter. this shit happens every moment of every day in the life of a woman.
Does sexism happen? Yes. Does it happen to most women at some time during their lives? Of course. Does it happen to some women a lot of the time? Certainly. Does it happen to every woman every moment of her life? Is hyperbole the MOST AMAZING WONDERFUL FANTASTIC THING EVER?!?!?!?
then try not to be fearful or have ‘doom and gloom’
To clarify, your advice to young women is “be fearful” and “have doom and gloom [about the possibility of sexism]?”
"There is no webcomics “industry.”" doesn’t matter, there is a misogyny industry and it’s called the world and the internet. pretty sure comics exist in the world and on the internet, therefore the industry that john is describing is an everpresent reality for 50% of the population.
Nearly 50% of the world’s population, over three billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day.
33.4 million people have AIDS and 2/3 of those people live in a 3rd world country.
870 million people are starving. 850 million of them live in a 3rd world country.
"There is no webcomics industry" doesn’t matter because nothing matters. The world is an industry of suffering. An industry of pain. We should all just give up now because the fact that we are able to sit at our computers, or on our phones and freely express opinions on the Internet while not starving to death or fighting for our lives day in and day out means we will never know the truest depths of human suffering. How can anything I say or do ever matter if there is even one person out there who has it harder than I do? Or, is that argument perhaps completely ridiculous?
When a mother of a young, female, aspiring artist asked me for advice for her daughter, I decided to encourage that kid, help her avoid mistakes I made, and lead her towards a path that might help her discover what kind of art she really want to make in order to be as happy as possible. What I chose not to do was smash her in the face with a tirade about sexism in the “industry” that will likely scare her off from ever attempting art as a career in the first place.
You have to choose fear. Fear gives people power over you. Fear is what sexism and misogyny feed on. I’d rather encourage this young woman to go and make and do and keep on going and making and doing WITHOUT fear and in spite of people that would tell her to stop or tell her she isn’t good enough because she’s a woman, so that eventually she will inspire more girls to draw and make comics and some day there will be so many women and men in comics who aren’t fearful of each other that it is no longer considered industry of sexism.
And I say “men AND women” because the fear is rampant on both sides. Sexist men are afraid of women and people like you and John are encouraging women to be afraid of sexist men. You aren’t warning a female artist to be wary of sexism, you are ensuring that sexism will live inside her (as fear) and persist forever.
Sexists in comics and on the Internet are just extremely focused jerks. When you stop giving jerks power by fearing them, and just do whatever you want to do without asking them for permission or approval, they eventually get tired and go away.
[Update after getting a few questions]
I want to clarify the final paragraph: I am in no way blaming women for the sexism they encounter by suggesting it is created by their own fear. I was trying to point out that “fear of sexism” is not “defense against sexism,” and it may have come out easy to misconstrue.
I also want to clarify that I am primarily talking about sexism in the context of the world of comics and geek culture. I do think “ignoring the jerks” goes a long way toward depriving them of their power, but I am not asserting that ignoring harassment, threats of violence/rape or actual physical attacks is the best course of action.
I also understand that the line between “I’m an idiot and I say dumb stuff to make ladies feel bad” and “I’m an actual threat and I am going to hurt women because I can” might not always be apparent, so caution is certainly advised. With regards to actual threats of violence or brutality, I would always suggest they be taken 100% seriously. I am primarily commenting on sexism as it refers to the empty words of an ignorant and small man.
The point I am trying to make is that fear in general will harm you more than the person or thing you are afraid of. When giving a young artist advice, I tend to steer more towards encouragement than “here are some things to fear.” I certainly don’t have all the answers, and my examples above do not apply to sexism in all it’s forms. People can be really awful to each other. My only goal is to steer people towards being less awful to each other.
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