A Non-Defense of the Organization for Transformative Works

[alixtii]

This is not a post defending the Organization for Transformative Works (a fan-run pro-fanfic nonprofit organization, if you're out of the loop). The OTW should be quite thankful about that fact, because frankly the OTW doesn't want me (or, more accurately, shouldn't want me) defending them. I'm a crap apologist, because I'm an intellectual radical and I can't hide that fact to save my life, even if I'm arguing with my brother over who should do the dishes, because the reason he can't see why he should do them is totally because he's operating under a correspondence theory of truth (without knowing it) when he should be going for standpoint epistemology, or some such. A conversation about evangelical Christianity's stance on homosexuality inevitably becomes one about whether there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. And so on.

And God help me, I hadn't even finished the first paragraph of this post and I've already invoked Sandra Harding. Other than the fact that I am male, I am in some ways exactly the sort of academic (though, truly, I'm not really, as I'm only a grad student, and a just starting one at that) that OTW's critics see lurking behind every corner of the org. So the OTW really shouldn't want me defending them.

So I'm not going to defend the OTW. I'm not even sure I want to; if you go to the original post(s?) in astolat's journal, you'll find me there (naturally), offering up criticisms of the project from the get-go and providing my reservations. (I will say that what comforts me more than anything else is the knowledge that the new archive will be run on open-source software. The OTW's goal is not to hegemonize and never was--and if they end up deciding they can't or won't host chan, somebody else will be able to use the code to do so. Same for having underaged readers.)

Okay, I've gone on for three paragraphs about what I'm not doing, and this is the fourth. What I will do in this post is respond to certain elements of the discussion that has arisen over the Organization for Transformative works and give my perspective on a couple of issues and why I think my view is the correct one.

No one who knows me will be surprised that the main conversation with which I'm concerned is the one over the gender issue--the claim, seemingly based on a single line in its mission statement, "We value our identity as a predominantly female community with a rich history of creativity and commentary"--that the OTW is sexist, excludes men, or cetera. Now the org has been remarkably (and to me, frustratingly) inclusive in its response to said criticism. The official part line on the "female identity" line is that it is a reference to a historically true fact which is thus ideologically neutral.

The OTW has not trotted out feminist theory and explained in those terms why its positions are correct and necessary, which you would think thy would do if the entire project is composed only of acafans (as some have claimed). Instead, it has done its best to present its mission statement in a way which would be palatable to people who hold a number of differing ideologies, even if some of those ideologies are from a certain perspective (i.e., mine) wrong. They'd make very good Episcopalians, I think.

I told you I'm a crap apologist; I can't leave it at that. Maybe the line in the mission statement is ideologically neutral, maybe it isn't. I don't think it matters, because there is a correct ideological position from which perspective the line is appropriate.

If we remember back to the major race discussions which took place a few months ago originating in the Stargate Atlantis fandom and then spreading like wildfire through my flist, we'll remember hederahelix's eloquent advocacy of the definition of systemic injustice as the intersection of discrimination and power:

Any personal dislike that gets elevated to an oppression (with a capital O) is never just the action of a handful of individuals. It is a prejudice that gets writ large into society as a whole. Racism gets woven into the very fabric of life in the United States. Sexism permeates the very air we breathe. Homophobia becomes so pervasive and insidious that it becomes like background noise to everything else. Metaphors that reveal abilityism become so commonplace that it’s like being in a room with a smell for too long; when that happens, our nerves that sense a scent overload and refuse to notice them anymore. Anti-Semitism plays into stereotypes in such subtle ways that if you didn’t know what to look for, you’d never even notice it (Watto in The Phantom Menace for example, replicates anti-Semitism in his manners and his speech patterns.)

Sexism is a systemic superstructure of male privilege, and it exists in the world. I have been the recipient of that privilege, and fandom has helped me to understand in some small part what it feels to not have it (something for which I am eternally grateful). Resistant measures intended to combat the overarching superstructure are not sexist. Thus the OTW could be excluding men and that would be okay.

The question is not, cannot be, "Would this be just in an already just society?" Putting Supergirl in a short skirt, or giving Powergirl big breasts, would be neutral acts in an already just society: some women wear short skirts and some have big breasts, and that's okay. But we don't live in a just society, and asking what we would do then blinds us to the pattern of oppression these facts form into today. Similarly, some actions are called for today as reactionary measures which would not be appropriate in a feminist utopia. Fandom's female identity is one of these things.

That's the argument OTW doesn't want to make, because not everyone agrees with it, and which of course it doesn't have to make, because they're not excluding men. They're not catering to men, of course, and in a world of rampant male privilege that might be felt as exclusion, as cereta documents in her post Fandom and Male Privilege. And I know firsthand what that feels like, being male, and it's not fun, especially not at first. But it's not exclusion. The OTW has male members working on its volunteer staff, serving on committees. Its mission statement states that:

"We value infinite diversity in infinite combinations. We value all fans engaged in transformative work: fans of any race, gender, culture, sexual identity, or ability. We value the unhindered cross-pollination and exchange of fannish ideas and cultures while seeking to avoid the homogenization or centralization of fandom." 

While men are certainly welcome (and again, I can say this firsthand), it is simply recognize that in a world where everything else is run by men for men's purposes, this is a female space.

I believe in what Helene Cixous called the laugh of the Medusa: the radical, revisionary possibilities of a community of women writing, especially about sex. I believe that what cupidsbow calls "amazing outpouring of female talent" in How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor has the power to change the world and is valuable from a feminist perspective. In her post Is Medusa Still Laughing?, kbusse writes:

There clearly is a long tradition of connecting male AUTHORity with its ever-present tool of the PENis and the history of female reading pleasure and sexuality has long been explored (see, for example, Lacqeur’s fascinating Solitary Sex, which discusses the assumed dangers of novel reading as mastubatory practice). While media fan studies has avoided the “slash is subversive” argument since Jones at least, I’m wondering whether we’ve dismissed it too eagerly after all. Because women writing their desires, writing their bodies, writing for their bodies, might not be as acceptable as we tend to assume it is at this point in time within the fanfic community.

Some might argue that OTW shouldn't be a feminist organization. I disagree. I think that every organization should be a feminist organization, and that the OTW is not feminist enough. (This is not a defense, remember?) The Roman Catholic Church should be a feminist organization, although it sadly isn't. The Cato Institute should be a feminist organization. The only reason NAMBLA shouldn't be a feminist organization is that it probably shouldn't exist at all in the first place. There are normative ethics at work here; I am not a relativist.

If you disagree with me on this, I think you're wrong, but I love you anyway. I have had very productive discussions with people on my flist who disagree with me on the role of power in human society. And OTW may still be for you--as I've said, it is way more inclusive of differing points of view that I am, and as in one of my good moods I recognize an organization should and must be if it is going to function. Even if you disagree with the importance of privileging fandom's female identity doesn't take change the coolness of a new archive, journal, or wiki.

This sort of brings me to my second issue, which is the relationship between radical theory (e.g., my feminism) and liberal activism (An Archive of Our Own). For the people who believe that the OTW as an organization is in some ways a betrayal of the anarchic ethos of fandom, I am profoundly sympathetic. Liberalism and radicalism always tend to exist in an uneasy tension with each other, and my temperament is to be a radical. (If for no other reason than that I am still young.) And yet for all that I am a radical--my brand of feminism is not the "liberal feminism" of the ERA brand (that's my mother's feminism)--I can see the good work that liberal feminism has done: suffrage, anti-discrimination laws, assurance of basic rights like holding property and not being raped. So too can I see the compromises with authority which brought about these reforms, and problematize them--and problematize them I do! But that does not change the fact that the plight of women is better than it was 100 years ago, for all the fact that the feminist movement consisted for much of that time of middle-class white (heterosexual) women who, no, did not speak for all women.

Liberalism is necessary for concrete change, but radicalism is the vision which both motivates it and critiques it. And, oddly enough, it is the theoreticians and acafans who are keeping that vision alive. The OTW is in the not-so-strange spot of being attacked from both the left and the right: it is being attacked for being comprised of acafan who think fandom is subversive, and also by fans who do not think the OTW is subversive enough, as it tries to use the master's tools to tear down the master's house.

The goals of the OTW are not as ambitious as those of 20th-century liberal feminism, but they are concrete and useful: an archive, a journal, a defense fund, a wiki. In all of the discussions over the motivating ideologies of the org, these concrete tasks--which all really the only thing the org has in common (two fans, three opinions)--keep getting lost. The criticisms of the OTW most often appear to rest on what it appears to be, to think, to want--and not on what it is doing. (Not much yet. Give it a few months.) This is, I think, a mistake, confusing the radical vision with the liberal nature of an organization. The OTW is not some massive machine which thinks and desires in unison, but a group of people united around a (mostly concrete) set of goals.

I think I was the first person to make the comparison to the ACLU, in December, here, althhough I've seen it made since. The ACLU is an organization which is commonly understood to be motivated by a certain type of ideological agenda, but it is not a "Living Document Constitutional Interpretation Club" or some such. Instead, its members are united in their support of the concrete work that the ACLU does, to the point that people who do not share the perceived ideology can and do support the organization, and the organization (famously) serves even those who do not share the organization's perspectives. And even within the group of people who do share the dominant ideology, there are differences in emphasis. I care much more about free speech (it was Strikethrough2007 that encouraged me to send my dues off for the first time) and gay/lesbian rights than I do supporting affirmative actions or opposing the death penalty; another ACLU member's priorities will be different.

I think the OTW is going to be a lot like that. I'm not defending them, mind you; I'm just calling it like I see it.

Comments

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

I recently got involved in a mini-wank with a person who claimed OTW is an organization of "sexist feminist extremists" who want to pit men against women. And I wonder if I've gotten so caught up in arguing with headdesky people like that, that I haven't bothered doing my own examination of OTW. For instance, I had no idea that the founders and mouthpieces were not defending their mission statement on the grounds you've laid out here. I figured they were, and people just weren't getting it. Now I wonder if they're hiding their feminist principles behind silence -- and in the process, leaving people to project the usual feminazi caricatures into the void.

Personally, I'm getting involved with OTW because I am deeply interested in the legal standing of fanwork; I believe fen can win a case based on copyright, and am intrigued by the more problematic argument authors might make based on trademark. I want us to have a place to post our stuff where we know the maintainers will not cringe at the sight of a takedown notice. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on how the organization plans to handle smut, especially the less palatable and more legally questionable kinds, and by getting involved, hope to shape that in a direction to my liking.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Being linked to in the last metafandom post, I assume you are in part responding to that, and if so, I want to clarify something. You identify the line in the mission statement about female identity as being the line that is seen as problematic by some. I think the line does exclude (in this case, not people who aren't female, but those fen who don't share that history), but I don't think this exclusion is a problem. Every group needs a focus, and that seems to be theirs. I am uncomfortable by their trying to represent all of fandom and saying that they are inclusive, because obviously some of us don't share their history, identity or vision.

The criticisms of the OTW most often appear to rest on what it appears to be, to think, to want--and not on what it is doing. (Not much yet. Give it a few months.) This is, I think, a mistake...

People are going to respond to what they see, and so far, we mainly have words to go by. We also have the backgrounds of the people on the board. I don't think its a mistake to start forming opinions based on this. That's what we do when faced with something new, like voting for a new president- what do the candidates say? what have they done in the past? I think it is a mistake not to keep an open mind and be willing to change one's opinion though.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Rest assured, I had outlined this post long before reading yours. And I want to reiterate that the further marginalization of marginalized peoples is a moral evil and I don't doubt that you've felt that, and I am sorry for it.

I think you're right that OTW excludes people who are not part of its fannish history, and I agree with you that that's not in itself problematic. I don't see where they are trying to represent people beyond that, though. I particularly remember the discussions over "media fandom" which especially showed the commitment was to a particular community with a particular documented history rather than trying to embrace everyone who had ever tried to do something fannish. Not to mention ComRel's (top-level post) statrement here: "The OTW of course does not represent all of fandom, as no one entity can make that claim. But we hope that many of you will find enough common ground with these goals to continue to support and participate in the OTW."

[elizabeth perry (from livejournal.com)]

This is fascinating, and I'm going to be re-reading it, I think. Thank you.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

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.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

OK, cool. I only guessed because I hadn't seen many posts that were not pro-otw. I don't suppose you could point me to some of the others that prompted your post?

I don't see where they are trying to represent people beyond that, though. I particularly remember the discussions over "media fandom" which especially showed the commitment was to a particular community...

Media fandom is only mentioned in one place on the OTW site: in Francesca Coppa's bio. The only other use of media (not counting where it's used talking about the outside press etc) is here: "We value transformative fanworks and the innovative communities from which they have arisen, including media, real person fiction, anime, comics, music and vidding." Its not clear to me how its meant here. Do they value "media" as something fan's do or create (the way "vidding" is), in which case- what exactly is a fan creating/doing when they "media"? Or do they mean media as the original source material a fandom springs up around, in which case a. what original source does "vidding" refer to and b. when did anime and comics become predominantly female communities with a female history? I'm also not clear on if book fandoms are covered, like HP or LotR, which are unquestionably huge fandoms but developed independently of the historically female dominated media fandoms.

There was something about being "inclusive" of all fen's identities i believe on the website, but now I'm searching for it and can't find it. Either I've confused where this was said or it was taken out.

On the "about" page, phrases like this: "OTW was created to work toward a future in which all fannish works are recognized as... and to preserve our fannish economy, values, and way of life [etc]..., while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans." and that they'll be "...preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms" Or on the wiki page "Authorship of the wiki will be encouraged from any and all fans"

So all those things together give me me a mixed message of intending to be inclusive of ALL fen and fandoms, and excluding of those that don't share their female history or identities.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But those uses of "all" don't imply representation. The ACLU perhaps only "represents" a certain liberal mentality, but it serves "all" American citizens, e.g. it has defended conservative Christians in court, based on the ideals it does represent. Every instance of "all" you citye can easily be followed by some form of "not just ours"/"not just us."

There have been many pro-OTW posts in the last week, as the result of a coordinated (if you can call it that) effort, but I was responding mainly to older posts from December, and to the conversation which took place in the comments of various otw_news posts. It seemed to me like there were very many voices accusing OTW of sexism or of excluding men.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm nodding along to this furiously! Yes to everything you say here.

[kbusse.livejournal.com]

You non-defender you :)

I like your radical standpoint not just in content but in action--the fact that you as a guy can stand here and say that (both the feminist agenda and your fannish identity of being part of media fandom) supports the fact that one can value predominantly female history (and even identity) and still be inclusive and value diversity.

Also, how much did I laugh when I saw that horrendous line with the under erasure and the random capitalization...and only afterwards recognized that *i* had committed that atrocity. LOL

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

And I know there was language discussed in which the OTW was being deliberately excludive in order to exclude conventional soccer fans, but I can't find it now.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I think the beauty of an org like ACLU (and hopefully OTW) is that we can disagree and yet have enough in common to work side by side.

Or maybe it's the sibling thing: we may fight like cats and dogs, but when parent comes, we stick together :D

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Yes! It's like the defense of FF.net I saw in the wake of FanLib: it might be the Pit of Voles, but darn it, it's our Pit of Voles.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Since a number of people are getting a different impression, maybe they should clarify on the website who they represent and serve.

I was responding mainly to older posts from December...

Oh ok, I wasn't thinking back far enough.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's a good analogy! And goes along with mine -- there are a lot of gay activisms I find pretty damn offensive, but I have to admit that when it comes to someone challenging our very right to exist I'm likely to take their side.

(Although from that radical intellectual unpractical position, I do see a political value in refusing coalition too sometimes... *points at icon* :) )

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

What a very smart discussion (even if it's not a...defense *g*).

I particularly like the way you bring in the parallels between the OTW and the ACLU because, okay, I've been sending money to the ACLU for most of my life, and yet some of the time, the organization makes me extremely uncomfortable because of things they say in the media or defenses they've chosen to take on (Nazis in Skokie, for example. she said, risking the invocation of Godwin's Law)...but I so completely want somebody to be there on the front lines that I can't not support them.

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this and articulating your thoughts so clearly and openly. I will almost certainly be linking to this in the future (even though I just promised myself that I wasn't going to read/discuss any more posts about the OTW, argh) because it says so much of what I'm incapable of expressing.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I still think it's fairly clear, although you'rew right of course people seem to be misunderstanding. But they serve everyone and they represent those who share their vision (just like the ACLU)....

Some of the "is OTW subversive enough?" came as a reaction to ethrosdemon's and dkompare's posts (and the comments thereto) as well, which are more recent.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I find it extremely amusing that we both modified "two fans, three opinions" for this topic. Thanks for the fascinating post.

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

I didn't even finish to read it, and I have to thank you for this. You don't know how tired I was of the 'BUT THEY ARE EXCLUDING MEN' argument. Didn't we talked about this years before, fandom? In, like, discussions about male-privilege?

And hell, I don't care about OTW.

[r-becca.livejournal.com]

...hahaha, my entire reaction to this post is "you are male? I had no idea! I just assumed you were female this whole time!" *is stupid, yet very appropriate*

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

except for my appreciation of the "anarchy" of fandom, this makes some sense to me.... I support gay marriage, heck, any marriage, but my mom and her "boyfriend" are not married, nor am I and bugland, and I avoid labels, because I've no clue on how to. :-/

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

What an interesting post! I have difficulty reconciling action with ideology too, for all the reasons you state (plus a few more, like: What do I do when two causes weigh equally with me, and yet they are in opposition in some practical way?).

[kerravongenius.livejournal.com]

As a woman, I find this twaddle about poor ickle women being the victims of the nasty, strong patriarchy profoundly insulting.

Fandom is not a female space. Fandom is a human space. Sexism works both ways and women (at least those of us who don't blame every problem in life on some invented male conspiracy) don't need to turn everything into a gender war.

If you really respect women, why not let us fight our own battles and stop being so patronising? The "plight of women" makes us sound like victims. Please, understand, the majority of us are not. If you believe in male privilege, by all means wring your hands about it, but don't expect gratitude from any woman with a speck of self-respect.

[illicit-grace.livejournal.com]

Yes...just, yes...
I feel as though I cannot coherently respond to what you have said. As I read your post I knew the reference you were making to academic work, and I know the vocabulary to give you a good response...but my language skills aren't working at the moment...

I think in many ways I am torn between the OTW filling my heart with fannish squee and some of the reservations you made here. Just like I'd so much rather for fandom to remain insular and unnoticed so we can continue on our merry way and in the next breath I'd like to be able to be out and proud about my fannish identity and what that means to me.

Sometimes I think that the OTW is almost politicizing fandom identity. I do not know yet whether or not this will be such a good thing. It could be good in thatt fandom then will be able to work more collectively for those things it wants, but identity politics have a lot of bad to them, and a lot of bad rhetoric surrounding them...and just in general are a dangerous and slippery slope to walk.
While I agree for the most part with your comparasion to the ACLU, I do find one difference. The ACLU (as a space, as an institution) does not seek to explain and contextualize the people(in our case it will be the "culture") who use it's services. The OTW, with the wiki and the Journal, are going to be spaces to work on the contextualization of fandom. This contextualization is what is going to protect our culture, yes, but it will make the space as a whole problematic. Of course, it could also help radicalize the OTW...but that gets into arguments of scholarship as activism vs scholarship detracting from activism and other headdesky things that I can not get into right now, at 1:46am.
I really do apologize for the poor (academic) quality of this comment, but please take this small offering of squee, such as it is. Because you have totally made my day. I may only be a second year undergrad, but I know I want to go into academics, and male feminists such as you are love.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the anarchy of fandom too! I don't think it's incompatible with the odd organization, though -- I think the range of fannish responce to OTW shows that the anarchy's not likely to be endangered by the organization. :)