Sorry, I’m late to this post, but I wanted to say that I have thought a lot about this approach as well in terms of directing a discussion. What I LIKE about the “feminist-only/pro-feminist” disclaimer is that is causes folks to stop and think for a half-second before they respond, to think about whether they are going to be contributing helpfully to a discussion or whether they are there to be asshats and steer the course of debate in their own anti-whatever direction.

However, I also think that I agree with what’s been said here: who is a feminist anyway?

However I’d also say to use it with care, don’t over-restrict, you might be silencing people who would otherwise have relevant comments and are perfectly prepared to speak them in a polite way. It depends really - are the discussions on your blog good/productive? Or are they stifling the other discussion you’d hoped to facilitate?

The third point I have is important however you do it, though, and that’s to be crystal clear about any moderation policy for that particular post. And obvious too, don’t hide it in the middle of a post, put it in a one-liner at the bottom or top. It’s not fair removing people’s comments if they weren’t against either the general blog moderation policy or the restriction stated in that particular post. (I’m not saying you don’t have every right to remove whatever comments you want, I’m just saying the effect isn’t nice, and comes across as unfair.)

As far as Alas goes, I like that sometimes there are these “safe haven” restrictions put onto blog posts, but sometimes I’ve felt that they might be a bit more restrictive than I personally would have thought necessary, e.g. a “keep it polite and on-topic” would have covered it, in my opinion. And sometimes I’ve seen a moderation policy that didn’t match what was said in the post. For example I remember one post that had some kind of a restriction like pro-feminist posters only, or similar, and then people were getting their comments removed (or being banned or something) simply for being offtopic, for heaven’s sakes. Discussions naturally drift from topic to topic! If the original poster wanted everyone to stay closely on topic then it should have been stated clearly in the blog post in the first place.

My experience is that there are a lot of people (and that includes men, and it really especially includes men) who won’t admit to having been raped / sexually abused / sexually molested (and I put it that way because different people use different language to describe their own experience of “rape”), except to someone else who’s had the same experience. Part of why, again just my experience, is that there are these people out there who say “Oh, it’s not as bad / frequent / whatever as that!” and then there’s a big discussion about just how bad / frequent / whatever it really is, completely forgetting that there are people in that discussion who’ve been told that their rape / sexual abuse / sexual molestation didn’t happen, wasn’t the way they claimed it was, or whatever.

And the same thing happens with racism and sexism.

Contrary to bean’s comment, in response to Susan’s, I think there is a bit of a Hive Mind at work, but also perhaps in agreement with why the Hive Mind doesn’t tolerate dissent from the conventional wisdom on whatever topic, I’m just not sure who benefits from “No, it isn’t really that bad!” discussions. My experience, and again this is just me, is that the people that the discussion is intended to benefit certainly don’t.

Not saying facts are a bad thing or make someone un-feminist (or a big meanie racists or whatever) for bringing up facts, but there’s a time and place and too often “facts” are what trolls throw out as a way to derail threads.

Its not a code word–its meant for YOU to decide if you are a feminist, and its usually also meant to discourage specific things which have been specifically listed.

Good point, curiousgyrl. I pretty much know by now, or can get a good read by looking at a thread and/or other threads on similar issues, what topics and views are or are not out of bounds on a given thread, and I self-censor accordingly. I for instance am not pro-choice enough for a lot of people here, so I read but don’t comment on a lot of feminist-only abortion threads. If in doubt, you can always email the OP and ask.

I must admit that, while I was a bit thrown the first time or two I saw it, I rather like Maia’s approach of saying, “you are off topic, this is the topic I’m trying to address, please either get back to it or refrain from commenting.” It helps that Maia is quite tolerant of disagreement with her views as long as it’s on topic. (By “tolerant” I mean allowing dissenters to comment and arguing with them vigorously, not agreeing with them.)

Two things I’ve seen here that I really find distasteful: flaming people who express dissenting views; and after commenter A posts, commenter B says “I know commenter A and they are not a real feminist (or whatever) and you shouldn’t let them post here.” I would let a person’s comments speak for themselves: as everyone else has already pointed out, it’s possible to hold feminist views on some subjects but not others. (Standard disclaimer: of course the blog owner and/or OP is free to set whatever ground rules they want, ban whoever they want, and so on.)

I ALSO sort of think one can hold “feminist views” or ‘racist views” or “liberal views” on a particular subject. But that’s a metaquestion with its own problems: if one is considered to be feminist on subject a and not subject b, there has to be some “standard feminist” who is feminist on both, yes? otherwise how did those get to be considered “feminist” views? and then we’re back to “what is feminism” again.

(yes some things are obvious. but those never seem to be the subject of argument)

But WRT to mandolin’s spot-on comment, and continuing to use myself as a helpful scapegoat example: if I’m told not to post on a rape thread merely because they don’t like my typing, or for any other random reason: no problem. If they tie it to not being feminist, not caring about women, being a secret rapist at heart, etc etc, they violate what I have begun to think of as “no derailment rule #1″: Do not insult people who you want to leave, because this creates a new area to discuss.

Yes, I know, it’s tempting to combine the “please don’t post here any more” with an explanation: “..because your views don’t help endangered species at all even though you think they do”. But it DOESN’T WORK for most folks.

“I’m clearly not liberal on that issue.”

Hmm. I’ve never heard anyone say “I’m not feminist on that issue.” A feminist identity — unlike a liberal identity — is sort of treated like an ‘on’ or ‘off’ rather than a continuum of belief, isn’t it?

As is racist. (or, probably, anti-racist)

Hmm.

That construction could be fueling antagonism on both sides of the contested territory. For instance, I think Sailorman is feminist in many ways, but I don’t personally find his views on rape very pro-woman or consistent with gender equality. Yet when he’s told not to post on rape threads, he interprets that as saying that he’s not feminist at all, rather than “not feminist on that issue,” in contrast to curiousgyrl who’s mentioning that no one’s chastising him, for instance, on views on health care.

So is curiousgyrl, like me, looking at feminism as a constellation of many subjects, where one can be feminist about health care but not necessarily feminist about another subject? Whereas sailorman is looking at feminist as an identity to be given or withdrawn wholecloth?

a “adherents to, or students of, critical race theory” thread will work; a “no racists–which is to say, nobody who disagrees with the tenets of crt” thread will not;

and so on.”

At the same time, feminism is not so elastic to be meaningless. It doesn’t really encompass complementarianism of the strict gender role type, for instance, so if someone comes in claiming it does, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say “I don’t think that’s a feminist stance.”

I realize that it’s sticky to say who is and is not a feminist, but if the term is really used to apply to any position out there — that *is* silly.

Anyway, this is why I think definitions are good. If there’s a discussion on Rachel’s site, for instance, about what anti-racist can mean, and how elastic it is, then that’s the definition that would be useful for Rachel’s site. It doesn’t stop other people from having different opinions they use elsewhere, but it also gets us a bit away from this concept that words have endlessly elastic definitions. Abstract terminology may have fuzzy boundaries, but not infinite ones.

Boundaries of what is liberal may be fuzzy, but if I believe welfare is part of a nanny state, I’m clearly not liberal on that issue.

I think people are saying here that they feel they fall into contested territory, which I’m here calling fuzzy, and I think that’s a valid thing to discuss. At the same time, I don’t think it invalidates the concept ‘feminist.’

Again, though, since more people will refuse the label feminist than accept the label racist, it’s certainly not a one to one correlation with Rachel’s site.

I’ll continue to use choice as an example, mostly because it’s simple and y’all know I’m prochoice in real life:

If someone says
“sailorman, please stop posting antichoice stuff on this thread; it’s for prochoice posters only”

then the polite response is “ok!” and most folks would give the polite response. All they are doing is setting the ground rules for a thread.

but if they say
“sailorman, please stop derailing this thread about funding of clinics to be a discussion about the morality of choice. I’ve asked you to do this several times. this is a feminist only thread so please don’t post here again”
it’s quite different. THAT statement tries to do three things:
1) set ground rules
2) establish that only prochoice folks are feminist
3) establish that since I’m not prochoice (which I am, btw) I’m not a feminist.

Is it any surprise the latter statement gets fewer “oh, OK!” responses? It should be obvious as to why. Because if you diss someone AND make a global sweeping characterization t the same time you claim to “narrow the focus” of your thread, it never works.

So
A “trans only” thread will work; a “only people who really understand gender–which is to say, trans” thread won’t work;

a “adherents to, or students of, critical race theory” thread will work; a “no racists–which is to say, nobody who disagrees with the tenets of crt” thread will not;

and so on.

Its not a code word–its meant for YOU to decide if you are a feminist, and its usually also meant to discourage specific things which have been specifically listed. Nobody would ever get called on not being feminist enough if they weren’t at that moment going for th obviously anti-feminist argument that the pro-feminist label was specifically trying to avoid. I’ve never seen “I agree with you totally, sailorman, about women’s health care, but since you’re not *really* a feminist, better hold off on this thread,” more like “please stop derailing this thread about women’s responses to being raped to be a discussion about why men accidentally rape women. ive asked you to do this several times. this is a feminist only thread so please dont post here again”

Overall, its helpful to do both. I think you should say anti-racist only AND list whatever it is you want to avoid for that post eg, “no arguments about how affirmative action is racist on this post. we are trying to discuss xxx”

Its okay to define some ideas (like color-blind racism) outside of anti-racism even when their proponents might not. they don’t have to agree with you, they just have to not post.

Just a different perspective — it gets people who are willing to identify as feminist.

So, you miss out on the people who think feminism is a dirty word, but you get the sincere liberal white dudes who really really want to argue that it’s practical advice to tell women to wear long skirts, not blaming the victim at all — or women whose interpretation of feminism is different from what’s considered standard (like you, Susan), but who are interested in the concept of equality.

And then you can always ban people from there if they turn out to be “feminist” with a capitol quotation mark and to believe in the dude laws or something.

I don’t know how well this applies to anti-racism, though, since anti-racist’s not a commonly used word.

I read that thread. My take on what happened is not your take on what happened, but I respect your perspective on what happened.

My problem was with the word “Received” which I thought you were using in the sense of “Revealed.” Thank you for clarifying.

This is not an easy line to draw. On the one hand, do you want trolls to take over the discussion? On the other, are you trying to host a “discussion” amongst people who already agree with you on every point? I’m assuming you’re in the middle. But, how to establish and defend that middle point?

Again, I’d suggest that you be very specific about who-all is qualified to post. “Feminist” is WAY too broad. That’s everybody and anybody.

If your criteria about who can post are too narrow, you won’t get a discussion, you’ll get a mutual back-patting session, which may or may not be OK with you.

What I find most frustrating is the way certain topics almost always promote the same sort of debate, whatever you say about them. I don’t want to see every post about abortion turn into a debate over the moral status of a fetus, every post about fat become a debate about the dangers of not being thin, every post about rape to become a lawyerly discussion on whether or not a particular rapist would be convicted.

I don’t find blanket ‘feminist only’ warnings that useful, because there may be people who identify with those sorts of analysis who want to have those sorts of debates. I’m moving more towards being quite specific about telling people what sort of debates I don’t want to have (except I always forget to include the warnings, but I’m getting onto that). I suspect that would be more useful if I wasn’t asleep during the American working day, which makes these things hard to police.

So maybe on your site you could have something basically saying that racism against white people is only on-topic in a thread where you specifically say it’s on-topic, and so on.

I got into a fight here some months ago (and accordingly wrote this site off for a very long time) over a statement that “x% of women are raped in the course of their lives.”

It was a high percent. Approaching half.

I had the unmitigated temerity to challenge this number, saying that in my experience and in the experiences of the women I knew the number was a lot less.

Without citing any reputable data (real evidence is the sworn enemy of Right Thinking) the Orthodox here told me I had my head wedged, and that further I am of corrupt personal character and in league with rapists for challenging this statement. Practically a rapist myself in fact. And I was called a number of ugly names into the bargain.

Well, it is what it is. My experience, the experiences of the women I know personally, are of no account, because The Received Wisdom is that X% of women are raped, and if we real women disagree, well that proves we’re out of line and out of touch with what is “really” happening according to the knowing. And probably bad people, in league with rapists, into the bargain.

That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. And that is the root of my request that statements about who-all is qualified to comment on any particular blog on any particular thread be m0re specific than saying “no non-feminists need apply.”

Please to be more specific.