I think Joss has on occasion indulged in the frantic, back-peddling urge to explain that any writer may occasionally give in to.
Exactly.
But then as you know, I'm not a big fan (heh, no pun intended) of the idea that people with various 'privileges' are liable to 'defend' them when they feel challenged. Its counter-intuitive given the corollary idea that those very privileges are transparent to the people who have them.
When I try and wrap my mind around it, I can see how it can appear to you as counter-intuitive; of course feminist theory is too much second-nature for me to find it remarkable. But think fo it this way: because the privilege is invisible to one, one sees it as an equitable status quo. When the privilege is threatened, then, one is able to interpret it as an attack on the (illusion of) equity and thus as a real attack. When one is used to society constantly catering to one's own experience, it's a disorienting effect when it suddenly doesn't; believe me, I had to stifle quite a few gut responses of "But that's not fair to me (as a male)!" when first entering fandom (e.g., when answering polls and such).
I think if we always look for surface motives we can't ignore the underlying patterns, but then, you already knew I thought that.
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Date: 2007-05-09 09:54 pm (UTC)Exactly.
But then as you know, I'm not a big fan (heh, no pun intended) of the idea that people with various 'privileges' are liable to 'defend' them when they feel challenged. Its counter-intuitive given the corollary idea that those very privileges are transparent to the people who have them.
When I try and wrap my mind around it, I can see how it can appear to you as counter-intuitive; of course feminist theory is too much second-nature for me to find it remarkable. But think fo it this way: because the privilege is invisible to one, one sees it as an equitable status quo. When the privilege is threatened, then, one is able to interpret it as an attack on the (illusion of) equity and thus as a real attack. When one is used to society constantly catering to one's own experience, it's a disorienting effect when it suddenly doesn't; believe me, I had to stifle quite a few gut responses of "But that's not fair to me (as a male)!" when first entering fandom (e.g., when answering polls and such).
I think if we always look for surface motives we can't ignore the underlying patterns, but then, you already knew I thought that.