Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/23/period-piece.html
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Just a heads up that a fair number of readers have found Man-Eaters to be TERF-y and the response of the writer has been, to put it kindly, less than ideal.
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TERF-y and racist.
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I’m going to have to start reading this.
Did I mention this other thing that is somewhat similar to this thing before?
It’s a good… thing(?)
(Uh-oh, I just read the previous comments.)
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Oh ffs. An oppressed minority doesn’t give enough deference to other oppressed minorities in her story about being an oppressed minority, so therefore she’s the enemy?
Circular firing squad, indeed.
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Yes. If a white woman is ignoring the experiences of women of color, that is very much a problem. That’s why “White Feminism” is a topic of derision by Black feminist writers. That’s what intersectionality means.
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I’m not saying there’s no room for criticism. I’ve lamented that black women are very much ignored in a great deal of modern media. I have a dear friend who was born a hermaphrodite, which isn’t the same as trans, but it’s a very similar experience. I understand the pain and isolation someone like that faces.
That said, the experience of being oppressed is very personal. A writer has to draw from their experience of it or it isn’t authentic. This author might not have known what it was to be oppressed as a black person, or someone who didn’t conform to binary gender, but only as a woman.
I think that story deserves to be told knowing that this isn’t the only social ill out there. She’s not your enemy, but a comrade on the same continuum of those who aren’t given the equality and freedom they should have access to.
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If you try to include everyone’s experience, people tell you off for telling a story that’s “not yours to tell”. If you don’t, they tell you off for being exclusionary.
Someone always has a problem. For me, it’s not a good enough reason not to read it and make up my own mind.
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A few years ago, a group of wee-dicked fanboys became enraged & livid over Cain’s MOCKINGBIRD limited series - especially the last issue where the lead character wore a T-shirt that said ‘Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda’. Cain deleted her Twitter account then because the torrent of abuse became too much.
So when I see all the current accusations of MAN-EATERS being TERF-y and not including every single viewpoint of feminist dogma - especially when at the very start, Cain stated that at its core, MAN-EATERS was about young girls being made to feel like monsters for going through puberty - I can’t help but feel that somewhere in a very dank basement, a group of wee-dicked fanboys sit at their computers and rub themselves with glee for once again putting that Cain bitch in her place.
After all, the best way to turn liberals away from the big picture & towards each others throats is to invoke specialization. Works every time.
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Female individuals are an oppressed majority, thanks.
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That’s why I prefer to use the more logically consistent term marginalized, as it describes what’s done to a group of people rather than implying that the problem is something intrinsic to the group, namely population ratios.
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Tell me that this doesn’t minimize the struggles of black women. And last time I checked women aren’t a minority.
That’s not a card you get to play when you take someone’s tweets of constructive criticism and turn them into propaganda in your “menstruation concentration camp.” I mean all she had to do was say “I appreciate your interest” and leave it at that. The criticism wasn’t mean or vicious, just “you can do better.”
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That’s no really up to you. It’s true that you can’t please everyone and that in turn isn’t a reason to be paralyzed into inaction. But it also doesn’t free someone from sharing the world with critical feedback in response to their actions. Whether and how one chooses to listen, heed and/or respond to criticism is up to them, and on the polylectic goes.
Someone else having a problem with a story doesn’t prevent you from appreciating it. Differences of critical opinion is a feature, not a bug and certainly not a circular firing squad. At worst, it means there won’t be enough interest to support further work, but absolutely no one is owed positive attention and the remuneration that can confer.
It only becomes a problem when abuse is substituted for criticism; criticism itself is not abuse. Conflating the two, and indeed treating all disagreement some polarized substitute, is part of how we got into this mess in the first place. The whataboutist defense mechanism of but they do the same thing is the poorest of moral philosophies.
And yes, if one expresses appreciation for something others have a problem with, that too is open to criticism.
It is an imperfect universe.
BTW, I’m interested in this and will give it a chance if and when I have time, and others are free to think my interest is wrong.
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Couldn’t it also be ageist and ablest?
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A short Twitter thread, with screenshots, since Cain’s account isn’t there anymore:
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She also used two readers’ tweet without permission in the comic.
She’s not the devil herself, but she alienated a fair amount of her audience by her own actions. It’s a shame- it could have been avoided.
I don’t know if that was ‘constructive criticism’ so much as it was ‘nitpicking & trolling’ - but whatever.
Cain’s biggest problem (besides internet idiots) is that she tries to make them all happy, fails miserably because that is NOT possible, then shuts herself off because it all gets to be too much. A better approach would’ve been ‘It’s MY book. I told you what MY book was going to be about - and I have lived up to that. If you don’t think MY book is satisfactory in dealing with your own issues, I’m sorry - but it’s MY book. If you want to see different issues being covered in depth, then make your OWN goddamn book.’
Seriously. The only thing more annoying than a Trump-supporting asshole is a nitpicking liberal do-gooder on a pointless crusade that always fractures rather than unites.
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I haven’t read this, but if the book centers on the effects of puberty on young women, it’s fairly logical that it would focus largely on that age group. So I’m not sure whether or not it would qualify as ageist.
I don’t feel like I can make any other judgements without reading it first. Though if I was still a comic book shop regular, I’d be tempted to check it out. I miss those days. 
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Oh, so over half the US government is made up of female representatives commensurate with the population. My mistake. /s
Lest we forget, the man running the US Government currently has thousands of innocent children in concentration camps, stuck in the clothes they came in, sick with preventable diseases, fed frozen and rotten food, not given classrooms, toothbrushes, or time with their own fucking parents, and very nearly crushed even more children into those overcrowded camps this weekend, but let’s crucify this woman, first, for not including enough trans women in her story.
I mean, let’s get some perspective here. We’re on the verge of a fascist dictatorship in progress. Can’t we just put our differences aside long enough before we’re all condemned to the death camps?
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