Thank you for this post! It articulates very clearly where I stand on and in OTW, too. I support their liberal agenda in the same way that I support gay marriage, because I understand that legitimation within existing systems is necessary and important on a practical level, that it improves the experience of living in the world in individual ways. But I oppose gay marriage too, because I oppose *marriage* as the centre of activism, and similarly although I support most of OTW's practical agenda, I have a lot of problems with "legitimacy" as a driving goal. Legitimacy to whom? In many ways, I prefer illegitimacy because I have zero faith in the sexist, racist, capitalist systems which legitimate. But if illegitimacy has negative consequences for some and to be legitimate makes things easier for people/fandom in general, then yes, let's have it.
I don't think I believe that an ideologically neutral position exists; I don't think I believe that a noncontradictory ideological position exists either. But when it comes to OTW's mission statement and gender, the key word to me is *values*, and I think that's the key word for the objectors too -- if you don't think predominant femaleness is something to value, then that line is of course going to annoy or even offend you. I do think it's something to value, but I think it's also extremely important to remember the exclusions or elisions the predominantly female community might take part in. Which I think is a point that's inherent in your post, too.
Of course, to be an academic inclined to radical critique is already to be in a weird subject position -- one is a privileged part of institutions and sites of immense cultural capital, etc, so the degree to which one can be subversive without also being completely hypocritical is very moot. I think that fandom's subversiveness is similarly contradictory -- creating noncapitalist and anticapitalist structures, subverting texts, but being part of capital and reliant on it. I'm not sure what OTW's relation to that subversiveness will be, but I'm interested to find out.
no subject
I don't think I believe that an ideologically neutral position exists; I don't think I believe that a noncontradictory ideological position exists either. But when it comes to OTW's mission statement and gender, the key word to me is *values*, and I think that's the key word for the objectors too -- if you don't think predominant femaleness is something to value, then that line is of course going to annoy or even offend you. I do think it's something to value, but I think it's also extremely important to remember the exclusions or elisions the predominantly female community might take part in. Which I think is a point that's inherent in your post, too.
Of course, to be an academic inclined to radical critique is already to be in a weird subject position -- one is a privileged part of institutions and sites of immense cultural capital, etc, so the degree to which one can be subversive without also being completely hypocritical is very moot. I think that fandom's subversiveness is similarly contradictory -- creating noncapitalist and anticapitalist structures, subverting texts, but being part of capital and reliant on it. I'm not sure what OTW's relation to that subversiveness will be, but I'm interested to find out.